


Tumblr Prompt Supergirl AUs

by Alsike



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Airports, Alien Biology, Alien Sex, Alien/Human Relationships, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Prison, Alternate Universe - Prostitution, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/F, Krypton, One Night Stands, Past Kara Danvers/Mon-El, Pregnancy, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Trans Character, Unplanned Pregnancy, references to: Mon-El being gross, references to: het sex, references to: suicidal ideation, tw: transphobia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-07
Updated: 2018-10-01
Packaged: 2019-03-28 06:21:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 31,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13898127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alsike/pseuds/Alsike
Summary: A variety of stories from the AU prompts list posted to tumblr.





	1. #31 Prostitute/Client AU (Kalex)

Alex could not look away. Her chest caught tight, like parachute silk suddenly strained to bursting with wind. The waterfall tumble of golden hair, the ducked head and shy smile, the blueness of her eyes beneath dark lashes, the creamy softness of her skin. How was Alex supposed to breathe in the face of that. And her kindness, the warm press of her hand as Alex made her confession.

"I think I felt that if I admitted it to myself, if I let myself want what I wanted, I'd be letting down my mom. It was easier to put it aside, focus on school and the parts of myself that she valued and just not worry about it. It wasn't important. But-- I've been having to face some facts lately, about . . . about what I value about myself, and whether or not I value myself as myself, or just the level of performance I think I can meet. And I just . . . it felt like this was a place to start. But I'm not good with people. I thought-- I thought this would be easier."

Her hand, supportive and sure, pressed Alex's arm. "Of course. That makes a lot of sense. I'm lucky you picked me."

Alex laughed, surprised. "You're not  _ lucky _ . Remedial sex ed? Who wants that?"

Her eyes crinkled in amusement again, her smile easy in a way that felt like a gift. Her fingertips ran over Alex's, sparking against them, and causing mirrored sparks in her chest. "Being part of your journey is an honor."

Shy, Alex hid her gaze. Fingertips caressed the curve of her jaw, lifted her head, and before her lips were taken, she found a softness and a sorrow on her face, a longing--for something that could not be attained. And then, like a surging sea, Alex met her, her mouth a well of sultry heat. Her hand caught the back of her head, assured and firm, turning Alex into the deepest corners and angles of the kiss, her body pressed against Alex, a sun-warm arch of muscle and skin. Barely able to catch her breath, Alex fell back, the rebounding mattress beneath her, a hand on her side, a movement, strong thigh straddling her own, drawing up her shirt, revealing a taut stomach, pulling it over her head and casting it away in a cascade of blonde hair and another crinkled amused smile.

"Don't look so astonished," she tapped Alex's nose lightly. "You'll strain something."

Alex choked out a laugh and felt her cheeks flame, and then flinched as her fingers trailed up Alex's belly, shifting her shirt up out of the way. A small murmur of surprise.

"I'm sorry," Alex muttered. "I know it's ugly."

Then the palm of her hand, full and sure, pressed against the scarring, still raw and red and slightly greasy with Vitamin E ointment. Alex pressed her eyes shut tight. She'd had so many plans, worked so hard when she'd seen that opportunity to be something more than she'd ever imagined, and in one stupid decision, one stupid wreck, it had been taken away.

"Healing is never ugly. Wounds are only ugly if you let them go on festering," she said, her voice certain, and yet the words awkward, as if it was an aphorism that didn't quite translate.

She peeled Alex out of her shirt, and when twitched, embarrassed at being looked at, and tried to reach up to clasp her shoulders, to draw her down and find her mouth again, she placed a hand on her sternum and held her down, her eyes roving, a quirk of appreciation in the corner of her mouth. "You're kind of dumb aren't you?"

Alex sputtered. "I have a PhD. I got my PhD at 26."

"Still dumb, not having any idea how pretty you are."

She lowered herself, a fall of hair like silk brushing against Alex's cheek. Another kiss _._ Tangled up in embarrassment and desire, Alex tried to follow as she drew back, but the firm pressure against her sternum kept her pinned. A quavering sound of protest released from her chest, and the grin she got in return made Alex blush.

Settling deeper into Alex's lap, casting her hair back over her shoulders, she reached behind herself and unfastened the catch of her bra. It fell loose, dropping away. Hands found Alex's and brought them up. With eyes squeezed shut, she held the soft weight. The taut skin and rounded nipples sensitized the center of her palms. She slid her hands around to hold, to lift up, and heard the soft gasp, as she did something right. The sound tugged on her insides like a sweet ache of a sore muscle stretching from her chest to her core. She needed to hear it again.

_ # _

The sheen of sweat, slicking the movements of body against body. The weight and the heat of another person on top of her. Clutching and cursing the grin that flashed wide when Alex revealed how much she felt. Languishing under her inquisitive, experimental focus. Alex let out a pained gasp, the movement inside her too deep, alien and terrifying. She was moved, her body manipulated with assurance, taking the pressure off her back, opening her up for further invasion. Alex clung to the shoulders that guarded her, hiding her face, pressing her forehead into her neck. A hand gripped her thigh, under her knee, pressed her leg up, hips rocked, slow and deliberate, and then increased in speed as Alex began to let out shaky voiced breaths, fracturing. The rhythm grew uneven, syncopated, losing control in a way that felt like a gossamer thread of real need at the heart of this overwhelming athletic endeavor. Pants came rough in Alex's ear, the grip on her leg so hard each fingerprint throbbed. She hiked Alex's hips up, forceful and assured, sliding in at a new angle, and it was strain then relief and more and more and not enough not enough not enough, and then  _ enough _ .

Alex heard her own cry as an echo, she grasped on, clung, and the hips pounding her went still, plunged to the hilt, deeply penetrating. She'd come around the cock, her broken body seeming to break again, but break for healing, like a joint sliding back into place, flesh bruised and torn, but the bones were all right.

She cried.

Calming, soothing murmurs, a hand caressing her waist, the slow drawing out of the cock making her clutch with aftershocks, the unfastened harness dropped to the floor and then a warm body pressed against her, stable and safe and comforting.

#

"May I go down on you?" The breathing in her ear had gentled, but there was a slight twitch in the hips pressed to Alex's, an alertness that spoke of arousal. A twist of curiosity in Alex matched it.

Slight surprise was in her voice. "If you want?"

_ Yes. _

She wanted it enough to not care about the awkwardness of getting down there, her movements halting and stiff, a short debate, arrangement--no, stay on the bed, it's not good for your knees--the sudden presence of scent and heat and slickness that had been only hinted at before. The tightening of the stomach muscles that stretched out like a plain before her, as Alex said, "Oh," because she hadn't done this, hadn't even thought about the reality of it.

It was not a rejection, it would never be a rejection.

Legs wrapped around Alex's shoulders, a quake in one revealing discomfort and tension. Alex reached up and laced their fingers together. She squeezed. "Relax," she murmured. "You've done everything right. You don't have to do anything more. I just-- I want this."

The grip on her fingers tightened. "You're sweet."

"Still not sexy though? Pretty sure my hair right now is the opposite of sexy."

A startled laugh, the tension and release of it letting relaxation flood through her and into Alex where they met skin-to-skin. Alex nosed into her inner thigh, nipping lightly and then licking to soothe. A soft sigh came from above her, a squeeze of her fingers, permission.

_ # _

"Can I see you again?" Alex's voice came out as she felt, small and quavery, overcome, addressing a force, a god.

Sitting on the edge of Alex's bed, putting on her shoes, she glanced over, contemplative. She didn't smile, just dipped her head in a slight nod. "I'd like that."

#

More nights, Alex counting her dollars, wry about the fact that she could never have afforded it if she hadn't cut out drinking--because $1500 wasn't spare change she had lying around, even with the teaching job she'd been relegated to like a consolation prize after active duty was no longer a possibility. She hated the awkward looks as the beautiful girl stuffed the envelope in her pocket, but it didn't diminish the memory of her warm mouth and soft skin.

The words exchanged were always secondary to the touches, but her voice, her eyes, her smile were written into Alex's memory like blowtorch calligraphy. The shouting after she picked up the phone-- _ No, Clark! Get off of that! _ \--the casual, unexpected admissions.  _ Can we make it nine? Or I'm going to smell like coffee. Late shift, you know.  _ Alex's own unexpected confessions.  _ Got shanghaied into taking the job candidate out to dinner. They're going to try to make me drink again, and I haven't done that since before I had a piece of Jeep through my back. Wish I could just see you instead.  _ Catching herself thinking about things she'd like, remembering brief conversations about music--taking her coat, making small talk that felt as vast as mountains--and making her a mixtape.

_ Kara _ , she wrote on the envelope serving as a makeshift CD case.

_ Kara. _

Then came the night Kara's stomach growled while they were still kissing on the bed.  _ It's nothing, I'm fine, I'm not even hungry, not really. _ Alex shushed her and ordered pizza. When it arrived she remembered she hadn't eaten all day either.

Half an hour of a sitcom, the pizza demolished, Kara's warm head lay against her chest. "You probably shouldn't have fed me; I'm going to pass out now."

That went both ways. A little necking, curled up under the covers, ended with soft breath in her ear. Then morning came, and the tussle over the envelope.

"You didn't get anything out of it."

But Alex felt as good as she did on mornings after they'd had sex, better even; she'd had more sleep. "You still had to stay over. You had to get a sitter and be away from--"

Frozen silence. "Clark," Kara said, like a confession.

Alex wasn't supposed to know about that. She wasn't supposed to have put together half dropped comments and unguarded excuses. Realizing she wasn't supposed to know, that Kara didn't want her to know, cracked open the façade. Not lovers, not friends, not even casual aquaintances, simply anonymous labor, necessary and likely unpleasant.

"You are smart, aren't you?" Kara sighed, resigned to the fact that her secrets were no longer hers, that Alex had invaded her life like a usurper, like a tapeworm. Alex's stomach soured. How did you not learn things about someone you spent whole nights with? How did you forget a single word someone said when they fascinated you?

Kara wasn't supposed to fascinate her.

"Take it," Alex said.

Blue eyes hollow, she stuffed it into her bag. "Half price next time," she said.

Her tone was unpleasant.

Alex didn't have words to try and counter this, to navigate the ugly intersection of privacy and intimacy, emotional obligation and transactional sex. "How about next time you pay for the pizza?"

A half smile and an out-breath of quiet exhaustion, and then she was gone.

#

"Kara?"

Bruises on her face, desperation, slumping back against the door. Alex hadn't called her, hadn't made a date. She was alone in her apartment, eating Thai takeout over her computer, checking her visual models.

And now she wasn't alone, a buzz, a small hey through the intercom, a confused press of the button, and then feet on the steps, a knock, and Kara.

_ Kara _ .

"Are you all right?"

A shake of the head. "I didn't know where else to go."

The story spilled out in hesitations and bursts. Her neighbor--she'd thought he was cool with knowing what she did, he'd been cool, until he was drunk, until he thought he was owed a favor for fixing her sink, until he let her know he thought she was worthless.

Clark was fine, at a sleepover. She'd fought off Mike and run. No, no cops. Cops didn't look at a hooker and see a victim of anything. Alex, jerky and robotic, fell into her mom's mode of taking care of someone sick. Hot bath, sweatpants, tea and extra Thai food. She put the TV on and didn't get too close, she didn't want Kara have to flinch away, didn’t want her to feel she needed to defend the still torn battleground of her body. Alex sat on the other end of the couch with her laptop on her knees, trying to work, trying not to get too close or too far away.

But Kara moved nearer, until there was a head resting on her shoulder, a warmth against her side. Alex shifted just enough, until she could put her arm around Kara, keep her close, let her sleep, and fiddle with her program at the same time.

"I don't want to go back there."

"Then don't. Stay here. I'll go with you to get your stuff."

"Just for a couple of days, until I find a new place."

#

It wasn't just a few days.

Clark showed up, a secretive eight year old, distrustful of adults, suspicious of Alex, suspicious of anyone who slept with his mom. Alex, skittish around kids in general, didn't know whether being friendly or cold would be worse. He wouldn't trust her if she tried too hard, but she didn't want to make him think she didn't like him. She erred on the side of too formal, treating him like a strange adult living in her house. He never lingered in a room alone with her.

Still, she liked watching Kara ask him what he wanted for breakfast, check his clothes and the cleanliness of his hands and interrogate regarding whether he'd done his homework.

"You're a good mom," Alex said, without thinking whether or not it was her place to say, wincing that it might sound like she was surprised at the fact, when she wasn't, when from the moment she'd heard Clark's name shouted from the other end of the phone, she'd known that Kara would be a good mom.

Kara snorted, as if she didn't believe it.

She couldn't bear that. Alex put her hand on Kara's arm. "You're a good mom."

Kara's eyes glittered when she turned her head, the light from the window reflecting off unshed tears. "I could do more."

"You do enough."

Clark slept on the sofa, and Kara slept in Alex's bed. Alex hadn't planned that. She'd planned on Kara and Clark taking over her bedroom. But one night on the couch had done it for her back. She had to cancel class because she couldn't drive with her pain meds. Kara had found her flat on the floor in the recovery position when she got back from her shift and yelled at her until she admitted that she probably needed to sleep in her own bed.

Kara hadn't meant to stay with her that night. But they needed to talk, about Clark and about other arrangements, so after Clark was installed on the sofa, Kara had settled in in her PJs on the foot of Alex's bed to have an adult conversation.

It had ended in tears.

Alex hadn't really realized that saying something like, "You are guests in my home. It is my job to make you comfortable for as long as you stay, and you stay as long as you need to," would make her cry. Once someone was crying you didn't let them go off to sleep on a yoga mat on the rug.

Kara's landlord wouldn't let her off the lease, so there was no chance of her having enough money for another place any time soon. Mike had smashed up the walls and broken the sink after she'd refused him, so that was any deposit gone, and the landlord was after her to pay for repairs, suggesting that if she didn't, he knew a few things he could mention to his cop friends. Kara got shaky whenever she spoke about it, but she refused any offer of further help from Alex.

Kara was picking up extra shifts whenever she could, but Alex was good at math, and she could tell that fifteen hundred dollars once or twice every month or so had come in handy. Alex wasn't sure if she could make up even a little of that shortfall anymore. Kara was living there. If she offered to pay for sex, would that sound like pity, would it sound like pressure--do it or leave? And she didn't even have the money anymore, not with the grocery bill what it was for three people, not for as often as she wanted to move in and kiss Kara, or press close when they were in bed and see if she could wipe away the stress from her forehead with her touch.

She couldn't ask for sex without offering to pay though. Because then, if Kara said yes, would it be because she liked Alex and wanted it too, or would she just think that she owed her for living there?

Still, Alex couldn't be her only client. But it didn't seem like Kara was pursuing that kind of work. She spent every night at the apartment.

#

It was a Thursday, a day Alex didn't teach, when she got a phone call from Kara. "I'm so sorry," she said. "Can you pick Clark up from school? My relief didn't show up, so I have to stay for the next shift."

Alex was not entirely sure about looking after a kid all on her own, but Kara sounded uncertain and uncomfortable enough already, so she made it clear it wasn't a problem at all.

When Clark came out of school and saw her waiting, leaning on her cane (because it was only a few blocks, she could  _ manage _ a few blocks, damn her back), instead of his mom, he recoiled. Alex held up her surrendering hands, cane swinging from her thumb, wishing she could just be annoyed that he hated her rather than having a horrible feeling in her gut that he had good reason to be scared of the people Kara had let into his home before, Mike only being the most recent one.

"Your mom's working. I thought we could stop by the library on the way home?"

Clark shrugged, and swung his bag, walking along near her, but not with her, and giving Alex suspicious glares. She was pretty sure she wasn't supposed to leave him alone in the library, so she took him along with her on her gathering up of a heap of books in the adult section, mostly Sci-Fi. He started inching closer as she took books off the shelf, and then finally tapped one of the ones in her hand. "Can I see that?" It was a fantasy novel, part of a humor series that was neither sexy nor gory. She handed it down.

He carried it around as he trailed behind her, frowning at the inside cover and the first pages. Then they went to the kids section and he held the book close to his chest. "I want to read this one," he said.

"Sure," Alex said. "What else?"

He looked surprised. "I can get more than one?"

"I think they let me take out up to fifty. So, as many as you can read in a month."

"Mom only ever let me take out one."

"Why?"

He ducked his head. "Because I took out three once and I lost them, and then there were fines we couldn't afford."

"Well," Alex said, considering how to handle this. It felt like a parenting moment, and she was definitely not prepared for a parenting moment. "You know better than that now, right? So get five, and we'll make sure they don't get lost."

He smiled. It was the first time Alex had seen him smile. His smile looked just like Kara's.

#

When Kara stepped inside the apartment, Clark was on the floor, motoring through the books he'd gotten, and Alex was on the couch beside him. Her laptop was open, as she was planning on doing work, but she had a book in front of it. It was one of Clark's favorites. He had recommended it. It was an excellent accompaniment to the pain pills she’d taken when she got home.

Kara froze when she saw them, Clark in a room with Alex without any protest. And then, like a shattered mirror, that hung together for a moment before it exploded into thousands of shards, she collapsed.

Alex had her up on the sink in the bathroom, giving her a wet washcloth to press against eyes that were swollen red with crying, when she saw the smear of lipstick that had left traces around her mouth, and then the red mark on her neck.

Alex stepped back, and Kara looked up from the washcloth, misery written on every inch of her. She knew what Alex had seen, Alex was pretty sure it was written on her face.

"I lied to you."

Alex swallowed down the lump in her throat.

"I told you I had to stay for a second shift, but one of my regulars called, and he wanted to meet. His kid had soccer practice, so I fucked him in his car in the athletic field parking lot."

"Okay," Alex said. She didn't enjoy hearing it, but it wasn't like she'd thought she was Kara's only client. Her back hurt and her meds made her stomach churn. She forced a smile. "You know, I can watch Clark, if you need to be away some nights."

"What?" Kara's voice cracked.

"I know you're feeling unstable right now, and if you need to pick up some extra cash to get back in the black, I can babysit. I think me and Clark are good now."

Kara said nothing, her expression unchanging, save for her eyes widening a fraction, revealing just how impossibly blue they were.

"If you've been cutting off one of your usual income sources because it would make me uncomfortable-- I promise I won't be an asshole about it." Alex bit her lower lip. "If someone hurts you, I'll kill them. I might have been discharged because of my shit back, but I still have the skills."

Kara let out a long slow breath. "I'm living in your  _ house _ ."

"Yeah?"

"Knowing I work as a prostitute and taking money from me, for rent or food, is classified as pimping under California law. You drive me to an appointment, you watch my kid knowing where I am, and that's supervising or aiding, and you're still liable. You don't want me to be working while I'm in your house!"

Alex opened her hands to the ceiling in a shrug, wiggling her middle fingers to indicate herself. Everything hurt, like the swollen flesh around an infection. "Multiple instances of solicitation too."

Kara stayed perched on the sink, watching her, and then slid off. She stepped toward Alex, moving near enough that it would take barely a movement for them to touch. She made a sudden move, as if to clasp her bicep, and then veered her hand away. Alex didn't flinch.

Kara's eyes were hard, her mouth a firm straight line. "I had sex with a middle-aged soccer dad this afternoon for a hundred and fifty dollars. I'm going to sleep in your bed tonight. Tell me you don't care."

That wasn't something Alex could say.

Her voice grew more high pitched, splintering with stress fractures. "Tell me you don't think it's disgusting. Tell me you're just being polite about not asking me for sex while I'm sleeping in your bed, and it's not that you've seen what I really am now, how people ought to treat me, and you never want to touch me again."

Alex grasped her waist, hands firm around her hips. She stepped in, bodies meeting, and pushed up on her toes to catch Kara's mouth with her own. The hiss of surprise, the startlement in her frame nearly pushed Alex off, but she hung on, moving one hand to the back of Kara’s head and drawing it down, kissing her again, until Kara leaned in, seeking more.

Alex broke the kiss. She reached up and rubbed the smear of lipstick off of the corner of Kara's mouth. "I can't tell you that I don't care. I don't want you to do any job that makes you unhappy, that makes you feel like you deserve to be treated like Mike treated you. But I'm not him. Whatever you do, I'd never think less of you for it."

She was close enough to feel Kara shaking. "Hey," she put her hand on the center of Kara's back and rubbed comforting circles into it. "It's okay. Whatever you want is okay."

Kara shut her eyes, then rubbed the back of her fist across them. "I lied to you, and you took care of Clark."

"I forgive you." Alex smiled and shrugged awkwardly. "I understand why it might be uncomfortable to talk about."

"And then you offered--" Kara shook her head, as if she couldn’t believe it, as if it was absurd. "I don't do overnights."

Alex frowned, a little confused. "You did lots of overnights here."

Kara flapped her hand at her."You were so insecure, and game to pay $350 an hour, and it was already 4am, so I told you there was a flat rate for overnights. I didn’t expect you to  _ always _ ask for an overnight. But when you did, I couldn’t go back on that."

Alex did the math. It wasn't difficult. "You gave me a six-hundred dollar discount?"

"I liked you." Kara shrugged. "You give a deal to the people you like, and you get regulars that aren't a chore. That's what makes it not so hard, being with people you like. It's better than being a barista, most days."

"You have good regulars then? They're good people?"

Kara nodded. "I don't take someone twice if they're not."

"Good. Good." Alex rubbed her hand back through her hair. She wanted Kara to be safe, to have good people around her. She wanted her to be able to make up her shortfalls and get away from her horrible landlord without having to deal with the police. But it all weighed so heavily on her.

If all of Kara's clients were good people, what did Alex have that was special? She couldn't think of a single thing. She'd been an awkward gay virgin the first time, and probably wasn't much better even now. She was terrible with kids. Her injury made her less than useful when it came for heavy lifting or endurance. She wanted a reason to ask Kara to stay, but she couldn't think of a single one.

"I guess you could have gone to any of them, when you were hurt."

Kara made a face. "I  _ could _ have. I know they would have helped. I just wanted to go somewhere I felt safe. Mike was in my home, and he knew all my friends. My other regulars would have gotten me a hotel or something, but they wouldn't have been able to just ask me in, make me feel at home. They all have their own lives, families and spouses and stuff."

"Oh?" Alex wasn't sure if she ought to be offended. "So I had no life? That was why you came here?"

Kara looked at her, her head tipped just a slight amount to the side, a contemplative grey cast to her eyes. The corner of her mouth quirked up in a tiny smile. "None of them made me a mixtape."

Alex's cheeks burned. "Oh," she said.

"I liked it," Kara said. "I like you."

"Oh," Alex said, for the third time. It was all she had. "I like you too."

Kara reached out, her motions tentative. She took Alex's hand, lacing their fingers together. When Alex gripped her hand back, she smiled, warm and relieved. "I know."

###

 


	2. #1 Soulmates AU (Kalex)

When people touched Alex, they never left a mark. In the first two and a half decades of her life, Alex had three marks and three marks only. Her dad, a smear of emerald green so deep that the intensity made up for its small size, her mom, fierce yellow spiderwebs, marking over a large part of her body, and Kara.

Kara was blue. Alex had found it after the first time she’d put her arms around the sad alien, and Kara had leaned back into her.

The mark stretched from her right hip to her left shoulder. It was dark, and too big. It was the kind people told stories about, what they said meant destiny. It was terrifying and humiliating. Alex hid it under her clothes, wore wetsuits and tight undershirts. She had sex with the lights out, fumbling by feel and nothing else.

The one guy she’d actually liked saw it. He’d seen the part on her neck that peeked up from her collars, and then he saw the part on her hip. He slowly pulled up her undershirt. Then he’d sat back on his heels, erection deflated, and cupped the back of his own neck.

He hadn’t said anything, but she’d known what he was thinking.

“It’s not romantic,” she’d mumbled.

It was just pain: the guilt of her dad’s death, the stupid helplessness she felt, because Kara was a super strong, invulnerable alien, and nothing Alex did could protect her. She was unnecessary, she could not mean anything to Kara in return. It all just hurt her more.

“But neither are we,” Brian said, “not really.”

He ordered pizza, and they spent the night watching Enterprise.

Alex wondered, sometimes, if Brian would have left a mark on her, if Kara hadn’t been taking up too much space.

#

Kara left marks on everyone she touched. If she hadn’t been an alien, Alex was sure her skin would be confetti sparkled, a rainbow jackson pollock. She loved so much, so easily and so well. But neither she nor Clark took marks on their skin.

Kara had marks, three large and two small, and one middling. She’d shown them to Alex once, late in the evening. _My mom, my dad, my aunt Astra_. The smaller ones were Uncle Jor and Aunt Lara. The middling one was Clark.

She should have known, she said. It should have been bigger.

#

J'onn’s martian green spread in a warm blotch across Alex’s skin. She didn’t tell him about Kara’s mark, didn’t show him, but he was a telepath. He knew.

Alex was glad she couldn’t leave a mark on Kara’s body. She didn’t want to see it. When she was young, she had been so afraid that she would leave no trace, that she would mean nothing to Kara. But now she knew it would be a dark mark, growing larger with each cruelty and each betrayal.

It would be the ugly kind of mark, dull and muted, the one that spoke of pain outweighing love.

#

When Kara solar flared she started getting marks. A warm purple from James, scattered pink and dusky rose from Cat Grant, a soft powder blue from Winn. Alex didn’t touch her, couldn’t touch her. Kara was so happy, eyes bright with the new ability to show the people she loved the physical evidence of how she loved them. Alex couldn’t face that truth made visible.

Only when Kara got her powers back did Alex let herself sink into her arms and hold on, breathing the scent of her hair and clinging. Every part of her that wasn’t marked in blue was extraneous. She would cut it off, and all she was would be what Kara had touched and transformed.

Kara held her and traced her finger along the blue mark that peeked out of her collar. She looked as if she was about to ask to see it, to see the whole thing. Alex had forbidden her from X-raying through her clothes as a teenager. She didn’t want her to know just how much of a mark she’d left. Alex had already given her life, her blood-innocence, and her honor for Kara, she didn’t want to give her pride also.

But Kara didn’t ask. She looked away and fidgeted with her sleeve where James’s purple blotch lingered, barely the size of a handprint, nothing like the mark he’d left on Lucy.

#

Lucy had a desaturated navy blue mark from her dad. It was dark, but the grayish cast to it made Alex sick. That was what it looked like when you did more damage than healing. That was why she never wanted to leave a mark on Kara.

#

Then Kara fell from the sky.

Alex didn’t think, she ran to her, she grasped her. Kara inhaled, her arm going around Alex’s shoulders, slumping limply into Alex’s clasp of her waist. Her suit was torn, and blood–a crimson stain–swirled over her skin, starting from Alex's low planted hands, crossing her torso in wide loops, streaking up her neck and across her face.

Not blood.

The DEO medical team came in, they took Kara away.

Alex sat in the rubble until Vasquez helped her up and took her home.

#

Someone got it on camera.

_Supergirl Has A Soulmate_

It was too bright, too vibrant to deny. ‘Soulmate’ was what they thought it was, what they thought it meant.

Alex knew better. She’d always known her bloody hands would leave their mark. But the fact that it crossed her face, it marred her, it was visible to everyone and undeniable, it made her crimes seem so much worse.

#

“It’s not dull, Alex,” Lucy said.

But it was dark, dark like her dad’s with loss and sorrow. Kara loved everyone more than they deserved.

#

Alex found Kara in her supersuit sitting on the roof of a building, feet swinging over the edge.

Kara looked over, and Alex flinched away from the mark on her face, the violence of it. How was she supposed to have a secret identity now?

Kara deflated, looking guilty and sick and shifted away as Alex lowered herself down beside her. They looked out over the city.

“I’m sorry,” Alex said.

“For what?”

Alex swallowed the lump in her throat. She looked away, down at the lights, buildings and moving cars, full of people who were far easier to love than Alex, far more worthy of it.

“For this?” Kara’s voice was sharp.

When Alex looked up, Kara was pointing to the mark on her cheek. Her eyes flashed. “You can’t apologize for this. You aren’t responsible for how I feel.”

There was a defensiveness in her tone. Hope lost. Grit your teeth and face your fate.

“Do you think it would be so dark if I hadn’t hurt you?” Alex reached out, her fingertips hesitating just before the smear of red on Kara’s cheek. “Over and over again, I hurt you. This is just evidence of how much.”

“I don’t know,” Kara said. “But it would be this big.”

Alex went still, the words shapeless soundwaves in her head, contentless. Finally her brain received the information her ears had heard so long ago. “It would?” Her voice cracked.

Kara watched her for a moment. “You never showed me all of yours.”

Alex shook her head. “It–It was embarrassing, when you– When I’d never know what I looked like on you.”

Kara let out a small breathy sound that was neither a laugh nor not a laugh. “Well now you do.”

Alex swallowed, and then she slowly unbuttoned her shirt. She peeled off the undershirt, and sat there, in her bra, as Kara looked.

She looked for a long time, and then she reached out and her fingertips brushed across Alex’s belly. Her eyes glistened in the starlight.

“On Krypton, they called this written in the stars.”

Alex nodded, swallowing. “The stories make it sound simple, don’t they? It’s supposed– it’s supposed to be simple.”

Kara spread her palm against the blue on Alex’s skin, cool against the flush of her torso’s heat “No,” she said. “It’s not.”

###


	3. #30: Tourist/Knowledgable Local AU (Kalex)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is just a spitball headcanon, not a full story.

Alex knew she wasn’t supposed to go into the basement under her dad’s lab. But it was a portal to another planet. How could she not?

At 11 years old, Alex’s favorite TV show was Stargate, she loved camping, and her best subject was science. It was her birthday, but her parents had left to go to a conference and told her to stay home with a babysitter. She was far too old for a babysitter. Offended that her parents didn’t trust her, either with their research or to take care of herself, she made a plan.

Evading the not-so-watchful gaze of the teen girl on the sofa, talking to her boyfriend on the phone, Alex packed supplies for a week of camping, dressed in her hardiest gear, and snuck down the stairs into the basement.

She found the portal, hit the big blue button that looked like on, and stepped through.

Krypton was just as beautiful and wonderful and amazing as she had expected. Alex roamed the streets, trying to stay out of people’s way, gawking at the gorgeous buildings and little float cars and people walking in long robes, their hands hidden in their giant sleeves. The only trouble was, she didn’t speak the language, and there didn’t seem to be anywhere to camp.

She heard an odd shouting coming from behind her, and looked around. A float chair zoomed up and hovered right in front of her with a blonde girl about her age on top of it.

“OHAYO!” the girl shouted. Alex stepped back.

“BONZHIOR!” the girl tried. Alex grimaced, unsure of what to do.

“HELLO!” the girl tried again.

“Oh,” Alex said. “Hello?”

“That’s a relief,” the girl said, flopping back onto her float chair. “I thought you might be an alien whose language I didn’t know. Hi.” She grinned widely. “Isn’t that funny. Hi, Hello, Greetings, Welcome, Hey, How are you. There are so many ways to greet someone in IngLis! I’m Kara.”

Alex was a little thrown by the enthusiasm of this alien–only Alex was the alien here, wasn’t she? But she did like having someone to speak English with.

“Hi,” Alex said. “I’m Alex.” She held out her hand.

Kara stared at it, then lurched backwards slightly, giving her a shocked look. Alex withdrew her hand. “Uh, no shaking hands here?”

“I’ve just met you.”

“Sorry.”

“Wow,” Kara leaned forward, precariously tipping her float chair, and looked at her like she was a strange animal in a zoo. “You really are an alien, aren’t you? What’s it like to be an alien? What’s your planet like? How did you get here? Why did you come here? How old are you? What is your guild like? Do you have guilds? Are your parents in a guild? What’s your house name? What kind of animals are on your planet? Do you have birds? I’ve heard about birds.”

“Wait! Wait!” Alex raised her hands. “Hold up. I’m an alien on your planet. Don’t you think you should tell me about here first? When you come to mine, and you’re the alien, I can show you around there.”

“You will? You promise?” This time she did fall off the float chair, which lurched to the side to catch her.

Alex laughed. “Yes, I promise.”

“Zhiuzhiu!”

Alex blinked. “What does that mean?”

“Ummmm,” Kara said. “Super! Awesome! Brilliant! Yes. Come with me.” She scootched back on her float chair, and gave space for Alex to climb up. “I can show you everything.”

“JiuJiu,” Alex tried, and Kara almost fell off the float chair again, laughing at her accent.

#

Kara, it turned out, was nearly the same age as Alex, only on Krypton, being ten meant joining a guild and starting to attend a guild school. Kara took Alex to the science guild and showed her around. It was amazing, scrolls everywhere and screens showing information about the universe that Alex desperately wanted to know. But she couldn’t read Kryptonian. Kara got her a small chip that would help her learn Kryptonian, if she spent enough time practicing. “It’s all right,” she said, “these are made for aliens on purpose. We don’t have to keep them secret.”

Alex loved the float chair too, Kara drove it super fast and kind of crazy, but it was so much fun to ride. She wanted to know everything about its specs, how fast it could go, how it was made, how high it could go. Kara knew everything but how high, so they decided to take it up to the spire of the science council, where her mom worked. It turned out that the float chair lost its stability if it went too far away from the ground. It tipped over, and Alex probably would have fallen to her death, but Kara, clinging to the float chair, caught her by her backpack and then when they floated down and re-stabilized, gave her a hand back up.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Alex said, startled by the warmth of Kara’s hand. “I didn’t mean to touch you.”

“It’s all right,” said Kara. “I think we’re already great friends.”

Great friends could hold hands. When Kara gave Alex her hand to lead her into her home, Alex didn’t know why she felt her face turn so pink.

Kara’s parents, particularly her mom, were a little less enthused about the alien staying in their house. But they gave her a bed and a place to bathe, and dinner, which was amazing, and Alex did her best to demonstrate her gratitude.

“Do your parents know you’re here?” Alura asked her.

Alex didn’t have a good answer to that.

She and Kara stayed up very late, Kara teaching her little bits of Kryptonian and Alex teaching Kara English slang and modern idioms. They also talked about science. Kara knew so much, Krypton knew so much. It was amazing. Alex wanted to stay on Krypton forever and go to school here. All of the questions she wanted to know the answer to, the Kryptonians had solved. She had felt annoyed about having a babysitter, about not being shown more of her parents’ research, but Alex contemplated all the wonderful things Kara knew already, and realized that she hadn’t been taking advantage of her time. There were so many things she could learn and do if she worked at it. And then she’d really deserve to be treated like a junior guild member, like Kara was.

Kara asked more questions about her world, one at a time this time, and seemed so curious and interested in the answers.

“Maybe you can come back with me tomorrow, for a little bit,” Alex said.

Kara played with Alex’s fingers. “I’d like that. I want to see the ‘beach’.”

Unfortunately, tomorrow came with Alex’s parents showing up, having come through the portal, wearing space-suits, terrified and furious.

Alura was comforting to everyone, but nonetheless, it was time for Alex to go home. Kara could not come visit, and the portal was being moved to a new safe laboratory.

Only then did Alex realize just how much she’d miss Kara, miss Krypton, miss this world. Unthinking, she threw her arms around Kara. Momentarily frozen, she had just enough time to realize how she’d broken Kryptonian protocol, and then Kara hugged her back.

Waving goodbye, Alex was dragged back through the portal to be grounded forever.

Kara turned to her mom, beaming widely. “I’m going to marry an alien.”

#

Kara didn’t see Alex again for six years. Then, one day, Alex fell through the portal, scruffy and angry and needing help.

Earth was in deep trouble, and the only thing that might be able to save them was Kryptonian technology.

But although the science council heard Alex’s request, they voted against helping this random alien and her backwater planet. Alura voted to help, but she couldn’t convince enough of the other councilors to share their technology to make a difference. She apologized to Alex, but what was an apology when your planet was dying?

Kara didn’t know what to do. It was Alex, her Alex, and even though they had just been kids the last time they met, and her aunt Astra had teased her mercilessly about deciding that she’d gotten engaged to an alien, when the alien just hadn’t understood what that kind of touching meant, she couldn’t just see Alex, taller and scrawny and hurt and in need without wanting to give her everything she had.

But there was only one thing she could give her that might really help.

Alex was sitting with her head in her hands, in despair. Kara put her hand on her arm–intimate, familiar. Alex looked up, and Kara bit her lip and then spoke. “Will you honor our engagement?”

“What?”

“You embraced me, asking to bond with me, when we were young.” Maybe they’d been kids. Maybe Alex hadn’t understood. But it had happened. That meant something. “I am still unattached, are you?”

Alex nodded, uncomprehending.

“If we finish the bonding, you can use the influence of my house to get what you need to save earth. My mother will back you, and as a member of a Kryptonian house you have the right to use our shared technology. All you have to do is … marry me?”

#

Mortified Alex was mortified.

The fact that her planet was dying had distracted her from her surprise at seeing the girl who had been her best friend for one amazing, important day all grown up. At sixteen Kara was tall and gorgeous and imposing and though she wasn’t as goofy and carefree as she’d been as a kid, the sharp intelligence in her eyes had only grown.

It was pretty clear to Alex that the reason she’d been so obsessed with the girl from another planet was that she was actually, undeniably, super gay. That meant seeing her again was terrible. But being informed that they were somehow engaged was so much more than she’d expected to have to deal with.

Kara was right though, it was the best chance to get help for Earth.

#

Alura was less than enthused by the prospect, but she did not protest, and they were hastily married, under the jurisdiction of the science guild.

Alex made the deal with the council for machines and supplies. Kara packed up her backpack this time and hugged her parents goodbye.

At the portal, Alex swallowed hard to see Kara dressed for hiking and ready to go. “You’re coming with me?”

“You promised to show me the beach.”

Alex hadn’t smiled in weeks, but she smiled at Kara. Kara tangled their fingers together and headed off to save Earth with her zrhemin.

#

Saving the earth involved construction and sleeping rough. Alex kept looking over her shoulder, seeing Kara, and being astonished that she was there. She’d thought of that day on Krypton as a dream adventure (one that had gotten her grounded for three months), and now Kara was here, with her, frowning and directing people, explaining the mechanisms of Kryptonian technology to the humans who needed to use them. Whenever Alex was speaking to someone she hadn’t met yet, Kara would slide in and put her arm around Alex’s waist and introduce herself as her wife.

Some day, Alex wouldn’t turn bright red when she said that. It was not today.

#

In those months, keeping Earth whole, repairing the damage, they drew closer together. Nothing dramatic changed, and yet everything changed, bit by bit. Spending evenings sitting around the campfire, they found new ways to make each other laugh. Slowly inching their bedrolls closer together until they shared blankets and Kara regularly ended up sleeping sprawled out on top of Alex, her body warm, her breath comforting and regular. The joy when a broken piece of machinery was fixed, hurling themselves into each other’s arms.

Touching like that meant something, Alex remembered. She wouldn’t let go until Kara did.

#

Earth had been put back on a path of survival.

Alex and Kara returned to city, where Jeremiah was managing reconstruction. Humbly, and formally, he thanked Kara for what she and her planet did for them. With each grateful word, Kara felt more and more ill.

“You’ll want to go home now,” he finished his thanks with, and Kara’s heart clenched.

His words offended her. She was hurt by his implication that her actions were in any way less than entirely forthright. She married Alex because it was honorable, because if helping was possible it was wrong to deny aid, because they had become engaged at a young age, because she wanted to know her more deeply, because she knew, somehow, that Alex would be easy to love. She had not done it out of pity or some false heroism. It was an insult to have it implied that she had.

Alex too flinched at her father’s words. The idea of Kara leaving–she was as shaken by that as she had been by the news that her planet was dying. But how was she supposed to say, ‘please don’t go,’ or ‘please take me with you’ when everything Kara had done has been an undeserved kindness?

#

It was only with the portal before them, Alex aching with loss, that Kara suddenly became infuriated.

“How dare you?”

Startled, Alex took a step back.

“What right have you to just put me aside like this? Do you think I take my vows so lightly that I can simply return to Krypton and pick up my life like I am unbound? Or do you simply think that only your human traditions matter and are deserving of respect?”

Alex blindsided and astonished stammered gracelessly. “What? No. Of course not.”

“Then what do you expect me to do? I cannot leave without you unless you tell me that you wish to dissolve our bond.”

“I don’t.”

“Then why are you sending me away?”

Slowly, Alex reached out and let their fingers brush. Kara flinched back. Then she breathed out and let them slide together.

“I’m not. Please don’t go,” Alex said. “I haven’t taken you to the beach yet.”

There was a lot to learn about being married to a Kryptonian. Luckily, Alex had always been an excellent student.

###


	4. 38 Cop/Ticket AU (Maggie/Astra)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A Very Loose Interpretation of this Prompt!
> 
> This is another innertube more than ship, but I love it.

The highway stretched out, steep mountainsides, trees and scree marking the space. Not even electric lines cut into them, here at the back of the state park. And yet, as Maggie drove into the seemingly endless stretch between landmarks, she kept an eye out.

Five miles in she spotted the figure on the side of the road, rucksack at her feet, mud to the waist. Maggie puffed out a breath and slowed her cruiser to a stop. She rolled down the passenger side window and lowered her aviators. "What's a woman like you doing in a place like this?"

Astra, sunburned and filthy from living rough for probably six weeks, smirked. "Couldn't say, Officer. Give a girl a lift?"

Maggie popped open the lock and Astra slid into the passenger seat.

"Jeez. Put down a towel first."

"You like it dirty."

Maggie laughed, turned on the stereo, and drove on.

#

Maggie wasn't even sure Astra had an apartment. When she wasn't working search and rescue missions and sleeping in their barracks or out in the national parks, camping, Maggie figured she crashed at her sister's place. Or she was here.

The shower shut off and Maggie set the bowl of grated cheese on the table, then started stretching the dough out into the pan. In a minute or two, Astra emerged, scrubbed clean, wet hair knotted up on the back of her head, in too short sweats she'd shoved up to the knee and a threadbare t-shirt.

She sniffed the air and let her eyes fall shut. "Pizza?"

"Get over here and pick toppings."

It was either pizza or burgers or something else that was mostly grease and salt when Astra came over. After long stretches on trail rations supplemented by scavenging she was a rake and needed to replenish her fat stores.

Astra immediately put half of the cheese and pepperoni in her mouth, then looped an arm around Maggie's waist and mumbled something incomprehensible into her hair.

"Dude, wait for the pizza."

Once it was in, Astra had her hands up Maggie's shirt in five seconds, and they made out against the counter until the timer rang. Then they ate the pizza.

#

The first time Maggie had met Astra she was a baby state trooper, on her first long loop around the national park. It had been a lot of miles with no contact. Even dispatch on the radio had grown fuzzy and indistinct among the mountains.

She'd been twitchy with the emptiness, and when she spotted what looked like a human figure standing on the side of the road she'd nearly wrecked her cruiser, sure it was a serial killer.

But it had been a woman, long and wiry, smelling of earth and days old sweat, with a rucksack and a Nebraska Search and Rescue Team card.

"Need a lift?"

"Wouldn't hurt."

The woman swung into her car and showed her a set of teeth she'd found, down in one of the pools just off the big river. "Pretty sure it's James Monroe. Went missing ten years back."

That was . . . gross. But Maggie admired commitment to unsolved mysteries. And she'd bagged and tagged it for the cold case unit. It was pretty cool actually.

Saying so got her a ducked head and a sly grin. Offering her a shower that wasn't the locker-room in the station got her laid.

#

Maggie had gotten to like the long lonely stretches of highway. Sometimes there were poachers, sometimes domestics, but mostly it was just her and her cruiser, coasting along empty roads.

Sometimes she found Astra.

Once she had a hiker slung over her shoulder who'd busted his knee. Another time she had two lost dogs with her, wet and sad and wanting to go home. Once she had a rifle and a hunting license she'd taken off a guy and a gunshot wound in her left arm.

Maggie had put on the fucking sirens and driven at 120 to the hospital, yelling at her for not radioing out the whole way.

That was when she'd met the sister and her cute kid. Talk about awkward.

"Oh! You're Maggie!"

Yes. That's me, now what does that mean to you?

When Astra was back to being grouchy to her sister, Maggie skipped out. Hanging out with family was definitely not her place.

#

Astra got a medal for being a kickass Search and Rescue officer. She'd free climbed up a vertical ascent to a nearly inaccessible ledge onto which two hikers had fallen, secured the broken limbs, and rappelled them both down before they'd died of exposure.

"You have a medal, but you still don't have an apartment, do you?" Maggie said when Astra was crashed on her couch futzing with the ribbon and frowning at it.

"I can leave it at my sister's."

"Leave it here, if you want. We can give you a nice spot on the bathroom windowsill. Any plastic Karate trophies you want to add are welcome too."

Maggie had been mostly joking, but when Astra left, the medal was hanging from the curtain rod in the bathroom.

#

Astra said once that she liked being out in the parks because she didn't have to put up with people. Search and Rescue was like picking up trash from the beach. You shouldn't be here. Going to pick you up and take you out and leave the space pristine.

She liked nature. Her favorite thing about nature was that it didn't pretend to like you back.

#

The leader of the search and rescue team called her first. An accident, the carabiner broke, floodwaters swelling the big river, missing, presumed dead. Maggie couldn't think it through, her brain kept stumbling at the first premise. "Me? You called me?"

"You can contact everyone else?"

"What? No. I don't-- I mean, her sister--"

She had her sister's number. Astra had borrowed her phone to call her once. 

“Yeah, I can contact everyone else.”

She called. A quiet, "Oh," and then, "are you all right?"

Maggie didn't understand.

#

The answer was no.

Astra's sister bringing over the puppy Astra had been training to be a search and rescue dog and asking her if she wanted to keep it just made it really, horribly clear.

But when had it ever mattered if she was okay?

Krypto slept on the foot of her bed and provided yipped commentary from the front seat of her cruiser.

#

The highway stretched out, steep mountainsides, trees and scree, marking the space. Not even electric lines cut into them, here at the back of the state park. And yet, as Maggie drove into the seemingly endless stretch between landmarks, she still kept an eye out.

The figure wasn't standing, slumped down in some rushes by the side of a bridge. But when Maggie pulled over and jumped out, it sat up, slowly.

"You all right?"

Astra smiled, lazy and clearly tired, one side of her mouth working better than the other. "Could be worse."

Maggie stuck out a hand and Astra clasped it. She helped her up, letting Astra lean on her shoulder back to the car. Inside, Krypto was having a joy attack, and leapt immediately into Astra's lap, kissing her face, when she slid into the passenger seat.

Astra put her arms around him and scratched him behind the ears. "Have you been a good boy for Maggie?"

"He's been good," Maggie said. "Been kind of nice having someone around."

Astra looked over at her, eyes unreadable. Then she nodded.

Maggie's hands tightened on the steering wheel, and she quickly looked back toward the road.

Good, she thought.

Good.

###


	5. #5 One Night Stand AU (Kalex)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HELLO ALIEN SEX PARTS. (just fyi)

"Hey, are you okay? I'm sorry, you just looked a little nervous."

The blonde girl hesitated in the door, off balance, as if one touch would push her too far and she would flee.

Alex didn't know what had gotten into her, going up to a stranger, but the girl had been on the edge of coming in for nearly a minute. She seemed too scared to venture into the shadowy bar. Alex got it. She hadn't been thrilled about walking in the first time either when Maggie had offered to 'expand her horizons.' But finding out that her surrogate dad figure was an alien had made her try to reach out, stop being such an asshole. She had friends here now. And green little newbies, well, sometimes they needed a hand.

The girl adjusted her glasses, awkwardly, standing in a way that made her look small. "Sorry, I must have gotten the wrong address."

"It's all right. People here are pretty welcoming, even if you're just a human, like me."

The girl hesitated, swallowing. "And if you're not?"

"Even more so." Alex tipped her head. "Let me buy you a drink? Before you run away?"

The girl's name was Kara. She worked as Cat Grant's assistant. "I'd say, don't tell anyone, but she's never gotten my name right, so I don't think it really matters," she said. She was from Krypton.

She ducked her head, looking shy, as Alex bought her a second drink.

"I've never told anyone. I've never really talked to anyone who just  _ knew _ ."

Alex bumped her shoulder, oddly easy around this girl. "I get that."

"But you're not an alien," Kara prodded her shoulder, a little harder than intended. The drinks were getting to her.

"Yeah, but it's not all that different to admitting you're gay." Alex made a face. "I mean, it is. But that first time you say it, the first time you have a conversation with someone who doesn't care, who just accepts it as part of you-- terrifying and yet exhilarating, right?"

Kara's eyes were soft. "Yeah."

Four drinks in and they'd moved to a booth, Kara's shoulder was warm, pressed against Alex's. And Alex knew she was probably fooling herself, but the shy glances, the warmth, made her stomach turn over.

Maggie had told her that she should get some alien booty, stretch her definition of lesbian a tad, just for the exercise. It wasn't as if Alex was against the idea, in theory. It was just the practice that was a Hell No. Alex sucked at hooking up.

"I have a cousin,” Kara told her. “But he doesn't feel like family. He never wanted me to admit that I was an alien. He just wanted me to pretend to be human, like he did. He doesn't think he's anything else. He . . . doesn't understand me."

There was more sadness there. The fact that the cousin was all the family she mentioned said enough. Alex put her hand on her knee.

"My dad died when I was fourteen. He was the only one who got me. My mom doesn't. She tries, but I'm just not what she expected, and she doesn't know how to deal with it. It's been so hard to try to open up to people, to build new connections, after the old ones fall apart." Somehow she had, with J'onn and Maggie. Sometimes she still didn't believe it was possible to feel grounded by them, to feel like she had somewhere she belonged. But she did.

"I'm just trying to accept that I'm never going to have a family again."

Alex felt the pain, the resignation, behind her words. She opened her mouth to protest. It wouldn't be the same as the one she'd lost, but a family was still possible. But Kara hadn't finished.

"My cousin and I are the last of our kind. There's no way to keep going. Our family, our species, the memory of our planet, it dies with us."

That was a lot bigger than just losing family. Losing a culture, a world.

"Hey--" Alex reached out, trying to comfort with her hands, but Kara pulled back, hunching into herself, hiding behind her hair.

"Ignore me. I'm being melodramatic. I don't-- It's silly--"

Alex threaded their fingers together and clutched her hands tight. "It's not. It's really not." It wasn't for J'onn either, and she couldn't bear anyone she cared for dismissing that kind of pain.

Kara peeked up. Her eyes glistened. She pulled in a jagged broken breath. She ducked her head again, shame on her face.

"And you don't know it's true," Alex said, searching for some way to diffuse this. Revealing yourself was never anything but humiliating, and she didn't want Kara to make her excuses and leave. She didn't want Kara to be embarrassed by telling her something heartfelt. "Look at all these alien species here. How do you know you're not genetically compatible with some of them? Make more Kryptonians--but not with your cousin. Hybrid vigor, right?"

Kara was making faces like she wasn't sure whether to run away, spit out her drink, or laugh.

"Also, your cousin sounds like a douche."

This time Kara did laugh. She put her arm around Alex's shoulders and bumped their heads together. "You're sweet."

"Nah. I'm selfish. I didn't want you to get so embarrassed you'd leave. It's your round next."

Kara's fake offended gasp relieved any lingering tension, and the way Kara bit the corner of her lower lip as she glanced back at Alex while rising to get more drinks-- it made her hope.

M'gann threw them out of the bar at three am, and Alex grimaced at her keys then stuffed them in her pocket. There was no way she was okay to drive.

"Guess I'm walking."

"Now?" Kara, a little wobbly herself, looked, disapproving. "Alone? No. I'll go with you. I can protect you."

"Oh, can you?" Alex was too amused to protest that she could definitely protect herself. She wasn't above playing the damsel to keep Kara around for a little longer.

"I like this time of night," Kara said, relaxed and lovely, gazing up at the night sky, only a few stars visible with the light pollution in the city. "There aren't people everywhere, I don't have to always watch myself that a human is going to figure out what I am."

The more relaxed she was the taller she seemed, proud and strong and really beautiful.

"I like what you are," Alex said, her brain no longer directing her mouth. "I like it when you're not pretending to be human."

Kara turned to take her in, something beatific in her acknowledgement. "I like humans when they're like you."

All too soon they reached the outer door of Alex's apartment.

"This is me." Alex unlocked it, and looked back to find Kara fidgeting from foot to foot. "Are you angling for an invite in?"

"No!" Kara blushed.

"Too bad, I'd have said yes."

Kara's mouth opened, then she frowned and stuck her hands on her hips. "You're teasing me."

Alex grinned at her petulance. "Yes, yes I am."

"Oh." Kara seemed shy again, suddenly. "Okay."

Alex paused, unsure what to respond to that. And then, without seeming to move, Kara was close, a breath away, her eyes intent, her lips parted, as if a word hovered just on the inside of them.

"Kara?"

Then Kara kissed her.

Her first plunge was awkward, and Alex only realized what she was doing a moment too late. She shifted, adjusting as Kara realized she’d missed, bumping noses and then chins. Then, finally, their lips aligned. Kara’s mouth was warm and gentle. Alex smiled against it and kissed her back.

"Is that all right?"

"Yeah.” Alex couldn’t stop smiling. Of course it was. “You want to come up?"

Kara nodded, unblinking, tense and awkward. She bumped into the bannister on the way up the stairs and knocked off the knob at the bottom. "Oops."

Alex laughed and took her hand, tangling their fingers together. "Careful. Don't be nervous."

"I'm not  _ nervous _ ," Kara protested.

"Then what are you?" Alex teased. Honestly, she wouldn't blame Kara for being nervous at all, not with the way her own stomach was doing cartwheels.

Kara stared at her for a long moment, the defensive protection sliding away. "Terrified," she admitted.

Alex got that too. "We're not going to do anything you don't want to. If you want to crash on the couch and watch Netflix, we can do that."

"I just-- I don't know if you'll really want--" Kara swallowed and waved her hand as if to indicate herself. "--me, once it gets down to it. I mean . . . isn't there some kind of law about . . . doing things, with other species."

"I promise you I won't freak out," Alex said, deciding that her first thought  _ don't worry, I have a friend who screws aliens all the time,  _ was inappropriate. "Neither of us are going to do anything we don't want to."

Kara stared into her eyes until she seemed to decide that she could trust her. She nodded, and let Alex lead her up the last few flights to her apartment.

Inside, Alex was the one off balance. She should have cleaned, she hadn't planned on bringing someone home from the bar tonight, did she have anything to drink in this apartment at all? "Ah-- um, do you want--"

But before she finished the question, her back had hit the wall with a decided amount of force, and Kara was kissing her again.

Fuck, she was strong. Kara didn't even seem to be trying to lift her up, but Alex's feet could not reach the floor. There was no point in pretending that Alex didn't get off on this. She clung to Kara's shoulders and kissed her back.

Kara kissed like she was new to it but had given it a lot of thought. She was forceful, rougher than someone else might like, but Alex gasped as her teeth cut into the inside of her lip and kissed her back harder.

The tongue was a challenge, but Kara was clearly game to try. Unfortunately, she pulled back to adjust, failed to aim, and licked up Alex’s nose, then jerked back, going pink. Alex didn’t let her go. She leaned back in and nipped at Kara’s lower lip. A small squeak escaped Kara’s mouth, and Alex kissed her properly, deeply, and Kara's hands gripped her tightly enough that she might leave bruises.

"Come on," Alex breathed into her mouth, and tugged her towards her bedroom. With the amount of strength Kara had at her disposal, a mattress sounded like a really good idea. Kara, almost carelessly, scooped Alex up, and in seconds they'd crashed through the door, and Alex was on the bed, with Kara kneeling over her, wide eyed with concern.

"Did I hurt you? Did I--"

"No," Alex said, and pulled her down.

Her bedroom door was a different story, but there was no point in worrying about that now.

Alex flipped Kara, settling on her hips and reaching down behind her head to drag her shirt off. Kara made a small whimpering noise, and Alex rolled her hips, grinding down into her.

"Oh no," Kara's head fell back, and Alex took off her bra.

Kara peeked, breathed in, and clutched at the blankets so hard Alex heard the fibers rip. And then, something different made itself known against Alex's upper thigh.

Alex froze, and Kara's eyes went wide. "I'm sorry. I-- I can usually keep it inside. If I do, I'm just like a human, really. I can just--" She scrunched up her face like a teenage boy trying to will away an erection.

"Hey," Alex said, keeping her voice soft, while inside her head a voice was shouting  _ oh shit oh shit oh shit _ . "I didn't come into this assuming you were just like a human. Sounds boring, yeah?"

Kara's expression didn't relax. She was waiting--for the rejection, for the horror, for the accusation?  _ Be more human, Kara _ . Alex had never met her cousin and already she hated him.

Alex rolled her shoulders back, putting her breasts on display (usually she was the awkward one, but now she had a rival for the position, and had to take on a different role). She reached down, and placed her hand on Kara.

Kara's lips parted, and something slender and eel-like moved against her hand.

"Is this all right?"

Kara nodded, still looking scared.

Slowly, Alex shifted her knees further apart and teased up Kara's shirt, trying not to get distracted by the expanse of hard abs visible underneath. Then she unfastened her pencil skirt and drew it and her underwear down over her hips. She heard Kara swallow.

She'd told the truth, just like a human, except for one thing.

"Wow," Alex said, her voice only a breath.

Kara made a soft sad sound, uncertain and scared.

"May I touch you?"

Kara nodded, just a little bit. Alex stroked the tiny blue triangle peeking out from her folds, and then, like a cobra, it snaked out of her and wrapped around Alex's hand, clutching it in a damp coil.

" _ Fuck _ ," Alex hissed.

"I'm sorry, I--" Kara was scrabbling up to her hands, trying to get away, but Alex wasn't ready for that, not at all. She closed her hand around the strange, prehensile organ, and stroked up it. It had an unfamiliar texture of fine sandpaper, and was already slick, gently lubricated, likely for ease of retraction and extension. Though slender, it was all moving muscles under the skin, turning and twitching as Alex’s fingers found the definition lines between them. It coiled in her hand, its visible pleasure echoed by Kara's gasp. It was a rich dark shade of blue, and the slick that coated it left blue streaks in Alex's palm.

"What do you call it?" Alex asked. Her thumb teased at the place it met Kara's folds.

Kara gaped at her, uncomprehending.

"Your cock? Your ovipositor?" Neither word felt quite right for such a graceful organ.

" _ Arral _ ," Kara mumbled, her accent suddenly odd. " _ Ki-arral _ ."

" _ Ki-arral _ ," Alex repeated, keeping her hand gently squeezing the coils.

Kara blushed, but she was smiling as if Alex had amused her. "If you want it," she said, her voice suddenly low and sultry. "But if you want to say it's  _ mine _ , say  _ rri-arral _ ."

That was a lot of rolled /r/s. Alex grinned and gave the  _ arral _ a firm tug. Kara's head dropped back and she thrashed a little. "I like  _ rri-arral." _

_ "Khap ugir rri _ \--" Kara managed. A correction. The full sentence maybe? Alex tried it.

" _ Khap ugir rri-arral." _

Kara's  _ arral _ spasmed at that, and Alex released it, falling forward to get at Kara's shirt and help her out of it and finish getting off her skirt. No nylons, thank god; her skin was silky and perfect. The  _ arral _ squirmed against Alex’s stomach, swiveling, alive.

Scooching down to get Kara out of her skirt meant Alex was face to--something--with the  _ arral _ . She felt Kara shift, sitting up just enough to see her, embarrassment flooding her cheeks, the  _ arral _ beginning to retreat. Alex leaned forward and pressed her open mouth against the flat underside. Kara collapsed backwards.

Alex grinned against it, licking her lips, tasting the salt and sweat and slight sweetness it had left on them. Oddly, it seemed to taste like sunshine.

She licked up it, only a little way, as it moved too much. Then she caught it, pressing it against Kara's stomach, and bending down to tease it with her tongue and teeth. In moments, she had Kara clutching at the blankets and gasping. Her fingers dipped down to the base, slicking up in her folds and the passage the  _ arral _ could retreat into. She slipped inside and crooked her fingers. Kara’s hips bucked. She seemed to like being touched there too. Maybe she liked it a little too much.

" _ No _ , no more _."  _

Alex was lifted and flipped onto her back, pinned under a gorgeous naked alien, whose  _ arral _ snaked down the front of her pants and jerked. The button went flying, and then Kara's hands were there too, shedding her of them, grasping her hips and pulling her forward, the  _ arral _ snaking into the tight space between her thighs.

" _ Kara _ ."

It was more shock than anything. But Kara's eyes went wide, they pooled with liquid, a strain on her face, desperation but also despair. "Please," Kara said, her voice rough and shaking. "Please don't tell me to stop."

"Hey," Alex cupped her face, then leaned up and planted a kiss on her cheek. "Not gonna. Come on. Give me some  _ arral _ ."

Kara gave a gasping laugh into her ear. Her  _ arral _ worked against Alex, its slick tip probing delicately, its long body rippling between her thighs, making her so wet.  _ "Chad khap rri-arral." _

_ "Chad khap rri-arral,"  _ Alex growled into her ear and Kara groaned, hiked her legs up, and slid inside her.

Alex usually wasn't all that into getting fucked. But this, this was so different than anything else. Kara was gorgeous and powerful and  _ everything _ , and she stroked Alex's hair out of her face, keeping her eyes on her as she moved inside her. The way her  _ arral _ moved, flexing and arching, thin and ribbon-like, but stronger than anything Alex had ever felt. It bunched and massed, circled around and slithered in and out. Alex hooked her heels behind Kara's thighs and let her play. 

Kara seemed to find an arrangement that was taking her where she needed to go, wound up and rubbing deep up inside Alex, pressing firmly back towards herself. She buried her face in Alex's shoulder and clung, breath coming rough, hips beginning to pulse, to shove Alex into the mattress. Alex couldn't hold on much longer either, just knotted her fingers into Kara's hair and rutted against her.

Alex came, and Kara cried out, and something strange and slick and wet ran out of her. Kara hiked up her hips, as if it was automatic, and buried herself even deeper into Alex, her brow furrowed as if she was trying to plant a very small tetris block in a slot via an unfamiliar control interface. It hurt, but right now, pain was only feeding Alex's flooded pleasure centers.

Then the  _ arral _ slithered out, disappearing back inside, and Kara collapsed on top of her and heaved air in and out. Alex lay there, limp and sweaty and sated, and considered the blue slick that had been left on her hand before and whether or not she would need new sheets.

Eventually, Kara's breathing slowed and she lifted her head. "Hi," she said, awkward and a little shy.

"Hi yourself," Alex said back and leaned in to take her mouth with her own. Kara smiled into the kiss and let her hand slide up Alex's side to rub over her breast.

It turned out Kryptonians were very energetic.

#

Alex kept looking up whenever the door opened. It was spoiling her game, and Maggie frowned at her.

"Waiting for someone, Danvers?"

Alex made a face. "No."

The door swung open and she looked up again, hope on her face. It was soon dashed. Maggie took the opportunity to move one of her balls into a more convenient position with regards to the pocket.

"You sure? It kind of looks like there's someone you met who you're hoping to see again."

Alex looked startled and uncomfortable. "What? It does?"

Seriously? Maggie gave her an incredulous look.

Alex sighed and ran her hand through her hair, making the strands on top stick up. "Maybe."

"Danvers," Maggie said, feeling more and more amused by the second. "Did you hook up?"

Alex made a face that didn't hide anything at all. She sighed and contemplated her feet. "Yes?"

"And you want to see her again?" Alex was so cute. She thought she was so badass, but she had terrible crush written all over her face.

"Yeah. I mean, she had to run; she was going to be late for her job. So I didn't get her number or . . . last name, or anything." Alex slumped a little. "I hoped she'd come back here."

"Oh, baby girl." Maggie laughed. "You had a one night stand? You're adorable."

Alex glared at her. "It wasn't like that. It was . . . different." Her eyes drifted to the side: reminiscence.

Maggie put together the evidence. "You hooked up with an alien, didn't you?"

Alex looked caught out.

"Oh, Lexie. You're growing up and stretching those wings, aren't you?"

Alex made a face. "She didn't look like an alien. She was really cute." Then she sighed and glared at Maggie, leaning in close. "Fine, yes. She was an alien, and I could tell from the first moment. But it wasn't important. She was just a pretty girl, sad. And then . . . then it was important. But--" Alex swallowed visibly. "--but I didn't care. It was really good."

"Baby girl," Maggie said, cupping both of Alex's cheeks. "Did you get up close and personal with alien sex parts?"

Alex went bright red. " _ No _ ," she choked out.

That meant yes.

"You were safe, right?" Maggie went and grabbed her cue, lining up her next shot.

"What?" came Alex's small voice from behind her.

Maggie fluffed the shot. She turned around. "You didn't use protection?"

"What would we have needed protection for?"

Maggie stomped her cue down on the floor with vehemence, tucked it in her elbow, and began to count off on her fingers. "First, diseases: viruses, bacteria, other disease carriers from space. Second, toxic substances. You know how you can't drink all of the things they serve at this bar? Well you can't take all of the fluids released by an alien into your body and not  _ die _ either. Third, parasites and other symbiotic organisms: some alien species do just fine with larvae living in their skin folds, you would not be so happy. And fourth, cross-species pregnancy. It's not common, but it's not impossible either. Some species are not so picky about DNA combinations, other ones are looking for fertile hosts to implant their young into. You have to be  _ careful _ . Do you not listen when I talk? Did you even use the dams I gave you?"

Alex was making the kind of face where she wasn't sure whether she should be more horrified or embarrassed. "I-- I'm fine. I don't think there was anything . . . I mean I had to throw out my sheets and I'm still--" She snapped her mouth shut. "I don't think anything is going to kill me."

Maggie sighed. "What species was she?"

"Kryptonian."

Huh. Maggie had heard about them, but had never actually met one. She'd thought they were all wiped out. Well, Alex had mentioned that the girl was sad.

"Human passing?"

Alex nodded firmly. "Very human. Very. Just . . . strong and pretty and, um, she had an  _ arral _ ."

Maggie frowned. There was a flush on Alex's face as she said that word. "You got fucked?"

Alex made a face, then nodded again.

"And she didn't warn you about anything? You didn't talk it over before?"

"I think she was a virgin. At least, with using her  _ arral _ ."

Maggie puffed out a breath. "Guess who gets to make an appointment with the gyno."

Alex gaped. "What? No. I'm  _ fine _ ."

"You had unprotected sex with an unknown alien species." Maggie smacked her with her pool cue. "You deserve it."

#

Even with superspeed Kara had almost been late to work the morning she'd woken up sprawled out on top of Alex in the very understanding and open-minded human's warm and comfy bed. She'd zoomed in, spare milliseconds before Cat had stepped out of her private elevator, the coffee still hot as it hadn't had a chance to cool in the four seconds between grabbing it off the counter at Noonans and arriving at CatCo.

She'd been on time. She’d dressed like normal. She acted like normal. And yet, somehow, people seemed to notice something different about her. Cat lowered her sunglasses onto her nose and eyed her with the kind of suspicion that never failed to make Kara certain her boss knew she was an alien.

Winn smiled at her. "You're chipper today," he said.

Kara hadn't noticed any particular extra chipperness. But when he said so, she found that he wasn't wrong. She felt  _ good.  _ Part of it was probably just the 'I got laid' good that humans kept talking about. But there was more to it than that. Her  _ arral _ felt more relaxed and comfortable than it had since she hit puberty. And she'd been able to admit to someone that she was an alien, to talk about it, talk about Krypton, and not have to hide or lie or pretend. She'd been able to be herself in a way she hadn't been for more than ten years.

She was going to go back to the bar. She wanted to see Alex again, she  _ hoped _ Alex would want to hang out with her more. But even if she didn't--and let's be brutally honest, Alex had been lovely, but Kara had been an awkward alien embarrassment who had stained her sheets blue--she wanted to go back to the bar. A place where she could be herself, have drinks that actually worked to relax her, meet other people who were like her or who weren't bothered by what she was, it felt like a miracle.

Only then, Clark was kidnapped.

#

"What do you mean, Cadmus captured a  _ Kryptonian _ ?"

J'onn looked at Alex, frowning in that way that meant he knew way more than he ought to, which also meant he probably knew that she was supposed to have made an appointment with the gynecologist and had been putting it off (but really, she was  _ fine _ . She was better than fine. She'd done her last 5k in 20 minutes, two whole minutes faster than her usual pace. And she was benching 350 all of a sudden, which, admittedly, was odd. But it wasn't  _ bad _ .)

She was going on this mission, no matter what.

For a rather effective mission, it had felt like a comedy of errors, most of which had to do with the flying Kryptonian in the balaclava who had come in to rescue the captive, nearly dropped Alex down a hole before she recognized her as an ally, then gotten afoul of a batch of kryptonite and needed rescuing, and then, finally, together, they'd found Clark, and extracted him from Cadmus and blown up their records.

Alex wasn't really surprised when the Kryptonian took off the balaclava and it was Kara. There were only the two Kryptonians around. But she was pretty pleased at the soft shy look Kara gave her and how Kara plucked at Alex’s tac-suit and said, "So you rescue aliens? For a living?"

"Kind of," Alex said. "It didn't start out that way. But that's pretty much what it is now."

Kara smiled. "I like that."

Clark had frowned at them. But it hadn't stopped Alex from giving Kara her number (private as well as work) to use after she'd gotten Clark settled in his new identity.

And Kara didn't seem worried that she could have given Alex anything. Finding out that it wasn't just a little super strength, also speed, flight, and possibly  _ heatvision _ , kind of made Alex just want to climb her and ask for a different gift.

So, clearly, the appointment was unnecessary.

#

Everything was fine. Everything was super fine. Kara had just gotten home, and had texted her to hang out.

They'd gotten coffee and breakfast, and Kara had told her all about Clark being grumpy about his new life as a mailroom boy at the Daily Planet. A journalist named Lane had already mocked his glasses. 

They'd walked out to the park where there were benches overlooking the basketball courts, and Kara had stared down at the boys jumping for a dunk and said, quietly, into her coffee, "Thank you. He's all I have. I don't know what I would have done without him."

Alex had held her hand, and been very grateful that Maggie wasn't there to see her being soppy.

And then Alex passed out in her lab.

#

"I told you to go to the doctor, but do you  _ ever _ listen to me?"

Alex deeply regretted putting Maggie down as her emergency contact. At one point she'd thought that it would be better than her mom, but no.

Still, having her mom here, right after she'd been told she was pregnant with an alien's baby, would probably have been worse. But at least her mom couldn't have said 'I told you so.'

"What are you going to do, Alex?"

"Is it viable?" Alex asked the DEO physician. "Will it survive?"

The doctor shrugged. "No signs that it won't, currently. The data you took from Cadmus on their Kryptonian captive suggests that they're human-like except enhanced. One way they're enhanced is that their gametes are compatible with, well, anything."

Alex hadn't really thought that her hard, worn-out body would be hospitable to life. But it seemed it was. It was terrifying.

"What are you going to do?" Maggie asked again.

There wasn't really a question about that. There couldn't be.

Alex slid off the table and went to find her trousers. "I'm going to tell Kara."

#

J'onn met her in the hall on the way out. He nodded, knowing her plan, knowing what she was thinking. Alex stepped into his arms and he wrapped her up.

"Bring her home," he said gruffly. "We'd like to meet her."

"Yeah," Maggie said, leaning against the wall behind her, grinning, but soft. "I have some literature I need to give her, on having safe interspecies sex."

#

" _ What? _ "

It would probably have been better to not show up at Kara's work during the middle of her workday. But Alex couldn't keep silent for another moment. She couldn't wait, or she'd work herself into a frenzy with not knowing what response Kara would have.

Kara looked gobsmacked. " _ What _ ?" she said again.

Alex shoved the papers from the doctor into her hand. "Yours."

She stuffed her hands into her pockets, ducked her head, and waited for the verdict.

She heard Kara fumbling through the pages, reading each one slowly and carefully.

"And this . . . this is your plan? To--" Kara swallowed. "--to see if it works out?"

Alex nodded.

" _ Why _ ?"

"Because Clark is kind of a douche. Because you deserve to have a family."

The papers dropped with Kara's hands to her thighs. She stood there, lips parted, confusion and disbelief on her face. "I do?"

"Kiera!" Cat strode over and gave Alex a sharp look. "You know how I feel about visitors."

"Sorry, Ms. Grant." It came out on automatic.

"And about requests for time off. But I think getting the news that you knocked up your girlfriend is a good enough excuse. Get out of here. I expect you back on Monday, as bushy-tailed as ever."

Kara gaped at her boss. Alex grabbed her arm and pulled her towards the elevator. This wouldn't be easy anywhere, but not having all of Kara's co-workers staring at them would be an improvement.

'Her girlfriend' an overstatement. But she'd hoped. And maybe . . . maybe there was a chance this hadn't ruined everything.

#

Kara's brain was fritzing every for seconds, making it impossible to maintain a train of thought. All she could do was look at Alex, pretty, wry, tired Alex, who needed to be taken care of. She needed to be taken care of even more now.

(Cat knew she was an alien.)

"I was supposed to raise Clark," Kara said, the words just coming out.

Alex slowed her stride and looked over, walking shoulder to shoulder with Kara down the sidewalk.

"But I got here too late and he had grown up without me. I was supposed to teach him how to be Kryptonian. But instead he had to teach me how to be human."

Alex listened.

"I don't know if I remember enough about being Kryptonian to be able--"

Alex's hand closed around hers. "You do," she said.

"I don't want to do this alone," Kara said, her voice shaking. She was asking too much. Alex had already offered her more than she could ever have dreamed of asking for.

But Alex still held her hand. She looked her in the eye. "You don't have to." Then she smiled. "I don't get on with my blood relatives all that well. But that doesn't mean I don't have family. And now--" she squeezed Kara's hand. "--now I have even more. And so do you."

###


	6. Royal + Prison Mashup Prompt (Kalex)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another headcanon rather than full on fic.
> 
> Here are my original notes in the tumblr post. Thanks outlyingoutlier for the prompt!
> 
> "OKAY! So, this is mostly thoughts. I got three prompts, all of which included Prison AU, and I was like, I have no idea how to do a Prison AU. But because everyone seemed to be into this idea, I decided to give it some thought. My first thought was that it has to be a Kryptonian prison, because I am too angry about the US prison system to make anything about it fun. Probably failed with the royal bit, but this is what I got.
> 
> Here is the story:"

Kara Zor-El is not technically a princess, as Krypton did away with the nobility a long time ago. But as the daughter of the head of the Science Council and a novice in the Justice Guild, she is as close as it comes. 

Her mother has some odd approaches to training her, however. One such training exercise is for her to disguise herself as a menial and work in the Argo City Prison for a few months. “You cannot honestly participate our justice system unless you understand what the words you are saying truly mean.”

In the prison she encounters a young alien, who fled her world and crashed on Krypton, but will not speak to anyone in charge. She is imprisoned for illegally entering Kryptonian airspace, but as she will not say which planet she came from, deportation has not proceeded apace.

At first, she won’t speak to Kara either. But Kara finds this very sad, very silent alien interesting, and visits her cell every day to sweep or tidy up in other ways. Eventually, the alien breaks, and says ‘hey’ whenever Kara shows up. Slowly, Kara weasels her name out of the alien: Alex. And realizes that she doesn’t want to speak too much of her language for fear it will be recognized and she’ll be deported. So instead Kara teaches her a little bit of Kryptonian, as best she can.

They talk a little. Alex is half-starved and mistrusting. When Kara complains about Alex’s scrawniness, Alex explains that she needs different food than what Kryptonians are given to eat in the prisons. Kara smuggles her some, and relays the information to the prison manager, phrasing it as a supposition rather than explaining that she speaks to Alex.

After the third or fourth gift–Kara doesn’t consider these things to be special treatment. They are things Alex needs. Her physiology and cultural background are not being considered properly–Alex has enough Kryptonian to open up about how she got there.

Her planet had been seized by a virulent anti-alien sentiment, and her family–all scientists–studied aliens. Their research was considered part of the problem, and a mob came to burn them out. After seeing her parents killed, Alex had taken the research, loaded herself into a salvaged alien pod, and shot herself into space. She hid all her files after crash landing. She doesn’t want to be deported, but she doesn’t want the Kryptonian government to get their hands on them either. She doesn’t trust any government anymore.

Though Kara knows the Science Council intimately, she has also heard enough to know that xenophobia is not unknown on her planet either. She won’t ask Alex to tell her where the files are. She also knows that Alex is at great risk of deportation. Krypton’s superiority complex make them very unhappy about any evidence that someone could land on their planet without their permission.

Alex gets sick. It’s not a disease either of them are familiar with, something Kryptonians can’t get and an alien germ Alex has never been exposed to before. The prison doctors don’t know how to treat her, and hook her up to fluids, hoping she will fight it off alone. Kara wants to isolate the virus, develop a counter virus to fight it, but Alex is so pale and sad and shivering, that she doesn’t want to leave, just in case this is the last time. Instead she holds her. Alex never lets anyone touch her, but this time, she leans her head into Kara’s chest. Kara wraps her arms around her and swears that if Alex survives this, she will find a way to make sure she isn’t deported.

Kara finishes her training and joins the Science Council. She has to abandon her prison-menial identity, and Alex is left alone, feeling abandoned. Alex is not ready at all when she is called in front of the council to have her deportation hearing and sees Kara there, all robes and cascading hair and cool, judgmental eyes. She feels betrayed–lied to and misled.

Kara has laid the groundwork though, and instead of deportation, Alex is remanded into the custody of the House of El for education and rehabilitation as preparation for her application for sanctuary.

Alex is grouchy and will not talk to her, but she goes to her lessons, studying hard. Alura who teaches her sometimes tells her that she is being too harsh. Yes, Kara lied, but she also fought for you. Remand and sanctuary were not even considered for aliens before she got involved.

And though Kara is sorry that Alex won’t speak to her, she doesn’t let it stop her. She continues debating with the other councilors, wearing them down, being fiercer and more reasonable and more principled than any of the others.

Alex goes and watches her in council, and sees her doing this. It is a hard realization, but besides realizing that she can forgive the lies, she realizes she’s in love with Kara. Alex knows she will never be worth more than begging for scraps at her table, but still Kara is worthy of her feelings. It is all right also that it will never come to anything.

When they begin to speak again it’s awkward in a way it wasn’t in the prison. Alex does not know what to say and feels like she’s wasting Kara’s time, when she is clearly so busy. Kara tells her that spending time with her is valuable, and her perspective is wanted. So they schedule time to spend in each other’s company: walks in the gardens, study dates for Alex’s sanctuary exam, drinking tea together in the gazebo.

Alex doesn’t know that this sort of private scheduled meeting is traditional for courtship. As it isn’t that, Kara doesn’t bother to tell her. But Kara finds the associations pleasant. The company, of course, is very pleasant.

Alex applies to work as an assistant at the Science Guild. Zor-El sponsors her. When she begins working there, she has many questions for Kara about what is being done and why and what it will be used for. Kara, on guard for duplicity among her councilors, is glad of Alex’s sharp questions and mistrust. She will not be caught unawares.

Kara, now a full adult, is old enough to take a mate. The codex selects one for her. He is perfectly nice. He is not a guarded, grouchy, traumatized alien. Nevertheless, Kara is unexpectedly devastated by the news. Alex’s devastation is much more expected.

But then krypton is invaded, by one of the species Alex and her parents did research on. Alex leaves the battened-down city to find it and bring it back. But leaving the city while under remand is against the rules, and she is a fugitive.  
Evading the law, Alex gives the research to Kara. Even if she doesn’t trust the council as a whole she knows Kara will do what’s best. Alex is taken back to prison, and Kara and the council manage to deflect the attack and parley, and end the war.

Afterwards, Kara argues for Alex’s release. “She saved us.” Knowing that this is a weakness, Kara’s opponent instead argues that Alex is an alien traitor who broke laws and tried to defect to the enemy. She should be executed or banished.

Kara can’t bear this, and when she visits Alex in prison this time, the encounters are much more fraught. She is not allowed inside the cells anymore, but they try to hold on through the apertures. Kara kisses her then, for the first time, and finds Alex just as eager, just as desperate. It’s too much.

The council cannot decide Alex’s fate, so they decide to do it the old fashioned way. If she swears loyalty to Krypton in the light of Rao, and he does not strike her down, her innocence will be accepted.

Alex vows. She will be loyal to Krypton, she will honor the houses and the council, she will swear her heart and soul to – she’s supposed to say the house she is loyal to.

She swears instead to Kara Zor-El.

Kara who had been administering the test in the first place, freezes, but only for a moment before she accepts her loyalty.

Alex has sworn herself into a very old fashioned lower-status marriage, one where there is a great social disparity. It comes from a tradition where a head of house often had many wives, one of high status, the rest dependents. It can only become a primary bond if the higher-status partner swears with the same subordinate vow.

Alex knew what she was doing. She knows enough about her adoptive planet to know that swearing to a house would have gotten her some protection, but swearing to a person would make her immune from deportation.

There was never any other person she would have sworn to besides Kara.

To complete the ceremony, Kara comes to her that night. There is a lot of yelling. Then there is … other stuff.

In the morning, when she and Alex are warm and naked and wrapped up together in Rao’s light, Kara swears the subordinate vow back. Alex doesn’t ask her to, doesn’t want her to. But Kara knows it’s the right thing. It’s a statement.

It’s also what she wants.

Alex is her first wife, not an addition. Alex is everything.

And with her, Kara is going to change the world.


	7. Airport/Travel AU + Pregnancy (Kalex)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And another Mashup Prompt! Thanks coffee!

Alex had commuting down to a science. Her job, security consulting, involved travel all the goddamn time, and though she hated planes and hated flying, she did it frequently enough that she knew everything. Getting to LAX sucked, but depending on the weather and the traffic report, she could pick the most reliable route to the minute. She knew which kiosk had the best coffee; she knew the timings of the bathroom cleanings; she was a  _ machine _ . Shouty children, screaming babies, harried couples fighting, she settled her noise-canceling earphones over her ears, sipped her latte and cruised on through.

There was absolutely no reason a crying pregnant woman should have interfered with her routine

But she wasn't a  _ monster _ .

#

The girl--because fuck, she looked like a girl, not like the sort of grown-ass lady who  _ should _ be bringing a child into the world--was sitting on her own in a gate that no flights were coming in and out of, in a pink t-shirt and grey sweats, with a duffle bag at her feet, messy blonde hair, and a crumpled handful of toilet paper into which she was currently oozing mucus and other liquids.

Crying was not an unexpected thing to see in an airport. People hated flying, and humans were garbage to each other when stressed. Pregnant was another thing that Alex saw reasonably frequently, and it was usually decidedly none of her business. It was polite to ignore it when someone was . . . bulging.

It was just the sitting quietly in a gate where no one was that seemed odd.

It seemed lonely.

"Hey, you all right?" Alex tried to make sure her tone came out neutral--not too soft, that would be embarrassing, or too blunt. She didn't want to scare her.

The girl lifted her head from her TP. Her eyes were blue (as well as red and bloodshot) and they glistened with her next round of tears. For a moment there seemed to be hope in them, and then she cringed, looking as embarrassed as Alex felt.

"Oh God, people in LA aren't supposed to be nice."

This had already gotten too awkward, so Alex reached into her bag that held the stickybun she'd grabbed along with her coffee and handed over a mass of napkins. "Here," she said. Then she spun and took off down the concourse.

It was just an awkward situation. That was all. And now she was just not going to think about it ever again.

#

When Alex got to her gate, she checked the screen behind the counter and frowned to see that her flight was delayed. It was only a twenty minute delay, so she found a reasonably not filth-ridden and child-free area to sit in and settled down to enjoy her coffee and stickybun.

Only, she didn't have any napkins. Sitckybuns were not forgiving to people with no napkins.

Because of the delay, she had plenty of time, so she went back out toward the shops in search of more napkins. Only, instead of finding napkins, what she found was the pregnant crying girl, now no longer crying, and instead having what looked like an unpleasant conversation with a gate attendant.

"No, Miss. I'm sorry. It's too late to refund that ticket and even if it wasn't, the price difference for Cleveland is--"

The girl looked exhausted. She was  _ pregnant _ , and she'd clearly been crying. Why was the attendant being such a hardass?

"Excuse me," Alex found herself coming up and speaking without even thinking about it. "What's going on? Can I help?"

The attendant went blank faced, as one does when one is asked to share a customer's personal information with someone who doesn't seem to be linked to the customer. The girl looked over at Alex. Over, Alex noted, not up, and even slightly down. She was tall, though still decidedly young-looking, and very decidedly pregnant.

The girl winced again. "Oh. It's you."

"Look," Alex put down her latte and waved her hand, trying to express with motion what didn't seem to be coming through with words. "You seem to be in a bind. Do you need help?"

The girl rolled her eyes. "You want to lend me $500?" Alex made a face. That was a chunk of change to hand out to a stranger. "I didn't think so."

Alex crossed her arms. "You think I won't?"

The girl stared at her for a moment. "I'm not going to dare you." She turned back to the gate attendant. "What about miles? I know we got some miles when we bought the tickets on my card."

"The ones for this flight won't come through for seven business days."

"Look," Alex leaned forward. "If you know they're going to come through, just put a lean on them."

The girl turned and glared again. "Please stop trying to help. You're making things worse."

"Well, I suppose I could mark them as used," the attendant said, clicking through what was likely a very poorly written FAQ. "Do you have the credit card you bought the tickets on?"

"Sure," the girl reached down. She patted her pocket. She shut her eyes, turned around, and leaned her back against the counter. "I'm going to die in an airport," she said.

It was a funny line, but she didn't look like she thought it was funny. Alex frowned. The girl had gone a little pale, and there was a sick look on her face that made Alex's 'I quit med school but some things stick'-brain go into high alert. The girl's shoulders hunched. She was crying again too. She pulled one of Alex's napkins out of her pocket and fumbled it.

Alex caught it as it fluttered toward the ground-- _ oh my god she touched someone else's kleenex _ \--and pushed it back into the girl's hand. "Hey, hey. Come on. I think you need to sit down."

The girl leaned into her shoulder as they limped over to one of the empty chairs. Alex checked her pulse, wishing she had a blood pressure cuff with her. "Take some deep breaths, okay?"

The girl obeyed and Alex found herself not moving her hand off her warm shoulder.

"Have you eaten anything today?"

"We were in a rush for the plane. Skipped breakfast."

"And not after you landed?"

"I'm sorry if having a screaming fight with my boyfriend and dumping him on my way to meet his parents for the first time distracted me from grabbing lunch."

Fuck it. Alex never finished a whole sticky bun on her own anyway. She held it out.

The girl looked at it, then looked up, eyes wide and confused. "I can't pay you back. My ex still has my wallet."

"Shut up," Alex told her. "Eat it. I'm . . . not a doctor. But I could have been, except sick people were too gross. You have low-blood-sugar written all over you."

There was a shyness to the way the girl took the bun, bit it, like she wasn't sure if was going to be taken away. Alex kept her no-nonsense doctor face on. (Admittedly, it was a quick repurposing of her I'm an expert and you need to spend more money on this face. She used that a lot at work.) The girl devoured the bun. Halfway through, eating at an insane speed, she finally stopped to smile at Alex. She had a nice smile.

"I'm Kara," she said, holding one honey-sticky hand out. "Thanks."

"Alex," Alex said, shaking it, and then opened and closed her hand a few times. She was a little astonished that she didn't immediately want to scrub the stickiness off. She wasn't a germophobe or anything, but she didn't like people. Touching other people was never been one of her things, as her disaster of a dating history revealed.

Alex sat down beside her and swung her feet a few times. She wanted to get the situation straight. "So, you were on your way somewhere, and dumping your boyfriend led to a sudden change in plans?"

Kara, nearly done with the sticky bun, paused, looking down at herself, the noticable curve of her belly. "A change in a lot of plans." Her shoulders dropped and she finished the stickybun without seeming to enjoy the last bite. "You don't need to hear the whole sordid story."

"You could tell me where you're trying to get to."

At that Kara went very quiet. "No. No, I'm fine. Thank you for the food. I can manage."

There was something familiar about the way she said that too, and suddenly, unhappily, Alex knew what it was. After dealing with some struggles in college, she'd volunteered at a shelter, teaching martial arts to the kids there. That was what someone said when they needed more than they felt comfortable asking for.

"Shut up," Alex said again. She . . . probably would have never developed a bedside manner. Being a security consultant excused her from being too blunt most of the time. People liked blunt security. "The agent said Cleveland. Is that your home base? Where's your doctor? Where have you been going for checkups?"

Kara sat back, crossing her arms, defensive again, but at least she wasn't crying or looking miserable. "Yes. Cleveland. We were on our way to Pasadena. Our layover went poorly. I told you I didn't need your help."

"Do you have your keys to your apartment?"

Kara checked her pockets and nodded.

"Are you comfortable staying there? Does he have keys?"

"We live together. But it's . . . it's his place."

"And this isn't a spat?" Alex had never been in a relationship long enough to survive a fight. But she'd heard it was possible. "You're not going to make up?"

Kara's face went white with anger. "No."

"Right," Alex started listing plans in her head, they were starting to get . . . complicated. Just buy her a ticket, give her the phone number of a shelter, and send her home to sort out her own shit. "Do you have someone you can stay with?"

Kara pressed her lips tight. "This really isn't any of your business."

"Right." Alex blew out a breath. She felt like she wanted to rub Kara's shoulders and back, push out the tension there. Stupid. She was being weird and stupid. "Look. I have a lot of miles, and it's really no problem for me to buy you a ticket back to Cleveland. You can pay me back later."

"You have no reason to help me."

"I have no reason not to help you either!" Alex glared. "And my mother would be very upset if I left a pregnant girl stranded in an airport." She looked down at Kara's pregnant belly. "Why are you having his baby anyway, if he made you so mad you left him in an airport?"

"Maybe the fact that I was having suicidal impulses on birth control and when I asked him to use a condom he thought it 'wouldn't hurt' if he stealthed me a couple of times. And then he just told me, six months later, as if it wasn't a big deal, as if he didn't ruin my entire life!"

Alex stared. Kara stared back, looking pale and wan and ill.

She was upset.

"Right," Alex said. She wasn't good at dealing with anyone upset, much less pregnant girls. "Not my business. I'm going to buy you a ticket to Cleveland, and you can just Venmo me the money back whenever you have it. No rush."

Alex got up and headed back toward the attendant. She should have known that getting nosy would bite her. This is why she didn't help people. She always ended up making things worse.

"We don't have any flights to Cleveland until tomorrow."

Alex wanted to smack her head against the counter. Her mom's voice was loud and clear in her head. "Pregnant women should not be allowed to sleep in airports."

Kara looked white and tired when she came up beside her. "That's fine," she said.

"Can you get her on my flight to Pittsburgh?" Alex asked. "The one that leaves in . . . twenty minutes?"

Shit, this had taken up a lot of time and they were boarding already.

The attendant tapped at her terminal. "Sure. It's underbooked." A ticket printed. "You're good to go."

Alex handed the ticket to Kara. Kara stared at it. "Pittsburgh?"

"It's a two hour drive to Cleveland. I'll rent you a car. You're not sleeping in LAX. I've done that. All the benches have armrests."

"No. Alex--"

Alex held up a hand. "I think it's better if we don't talk. That way we won't say things we regret."

Her group was boarding. She gave Kara one last look, then turned around and walked away.

It was a long flight. Alex was about ten rows ahead, and tried not to look over as Kara and her large duffle went past.

She was pretty, Alex finally registered. Her blonde hair fell so neatly into curls at the bottom it looked like doll's hair. She'd recovered from crying quickly and her face was neutral-sad. She was wearing comfy flying clothes, sweatpants and a hoodie, but she was one of those girls who couldn't hide how pretty she was by dressing sloppily. Alex sighed. Was she that much of a sucker for a pretty girl?

But the prettiness wasn't really important. Liking someone, Alex had decided at some point, was a lot of things together. Like the enthusiasm with which she'd eaten Alex's stickybun (speaking of which, now Alex's stomach was growling), or the way she'd refused charity that had smacked of poverty as a child, or how even though she'd yelled at Alex, she'd told her the truth about what had happened. She was pretty,  _ and _ Alex liked her. But talking to her was definitely more trouble than it was worth.

Alex sighed and settled in for a long, hungry trip.

#

"I need a burrito so badly," Alex said when Kara emerged, duffle over her shoulder, looking sleepy and red-eyed, like she'd cried again.

"Okay," Kara said.

They hit up the burrito bar down the concourse. Alex ordered and then glanced over, "What do you want?"

Kara went tense, and Alex glared at her, daring her to make something of it.

Kara gave in. "Um, the fajita one."

Alex had seen the way she ate the sticky bun. She made it a grande.

Alex tore into hers while on the bus to the rental car place. Kara laughed at her when she licked out the inside of the salsa container. Alex narrowed her eyes at Kara. "You ate my breakfast."

Kara shrugged and daintily opened her burrito and started to chomp it. "Pregnant. It's my prerogative."

Alex shouldered her lightly in the side.

Kara smiled at her. Her eyes were bright and for once she didn't look sad or strained or guilty. Alex couldn't help her own stupid smile back.

The mood stayed light. It was nice to have things decided. Alex had promised help and Kara had accepted it. They had gotten over that. They didn't have to fight about it anymore.

As they entered the rental car place, Alex put on her no-nonsense-asshole face to barter with the Budget Rental person. Only, Kara cocked her head and raised an eyebrow at her. "You look so dour. It's like you're ready to kill someone."

"Don't mess with my technique," Alex retorted.

Kara grinned. "But it's so fake. I know you're a softy," and poked her chest.

Alex gaped at the impertinent girl and raised her hand to poke her back, but couldn't because where could you poke a pregnant woman? "You-- you." she glared, and Kara, unexpectedly, let her hand fall on the back of Alex's arm, stroking down it until their fingers almost tangled together. She took Alex's arm and leaned on her as they approached the counter.

"Ohhh, you're so sweet," the lady behind the counter said. "How far along?"

"Twenty-six weeks," Kara said, propping her forearms on the edge of the surface and lighting up.

"Boy or girl?"

"Don't know."

"Is this your first?"

"Yep."

"You feeling ready?"

"Not at all."

"How about you?" Suddenly Alex realized that she was the recipient of this question. "Are you ready for your little monster?"

Alex gaped. She looked from the overly friendly woman to Kara and back, unable to find words to respond to this.

Kara interjected. "Alex has been freaking out since day one." She cast Alex a sly grin that Alex did not recognize at all.

"I bet," the lady said. "Now what can I do for you and your lovely family?"

There was one problem with getting the car. Kara didn't have her driver's license with her, so she couldn't just take it and go. They stepped aside to confer quietly.

"It's fine," Alex hissed. "I need a car while I'm here anyways. I'll just drive you."

"It's four hours for you."

Alex glared. Kara glared back. Alex flipped open her phone and hit send. "Hi Winn, turns out I have a thing tonight. Cancel the walkthrough, reschedule for tomorrow morning. What? Oh, tell them it's a delay. Travel thing."

"What is it really?" Winn asked, sounding curious. Alex very rarely made him reschedule anything, and definitely never for personal reasons.

"I'm . . . driving someone to Cleveland."

"Why?"

"Don't ask!" Alex hung up on him.

"You are--" Kara shook her head. "You are really annoying."

"Because I'm so nice?" Alex inquired.

Kara rolled her eyes. "No. Because you keep getting your own way and you're smug about it."

"You could get your own way if your own way wasn't always making yourself suffer stupidly."

"Oh, I'll get my revenge," Kara said, with a look in her eyes that made Alex suddenly very concerned that she would.

When they got the keys from the lady behind the counter, Kara smiled and waved at her, and wrapped her arm around Alex's waist. "Relax," Kara whispered into her ear. "She gave us a good deal. Look like a cute couple."

Alex knew that this was point one of Kara winning back her own pride.

#

It was a long boring drive from Pittsburgh to Cleveland. Alex stared down the highway, Kara half curled in on herself in the passenger seat. Something was bothering her and she knew it was probably because she wasn't all that good at people, but she wanted to know.

"Your boyfriend . . . you said he ruined your life. But, you don't seem unhappy about being pregnant?"

Kara didn't answer for a long time and Alex hoped she would just forget the question had ever been asked. She fumbled with the radio.

But Kara spoke, her tone unsettlingly dark. "If he'd just gotten me pregnant, he wouldn't have ruined my life. It was the other stuff."

"Oh," Alex said, wishing she hadn't asked. They had two more hours together. She could have asked about . . . baseball. Cleveland probably had baseball. But, Alex's mother was already making sighing noises about Alex not being inclined to settle down and procreate. Alex wasn't sure if she was or wasn't inclined. She didn't know what it felt like to want that. Or to not want it. It just felt . . . foreign, like something entirely irrelevant to her life. She wanted to know. Still, it wasn't fair to be asking Kara for insight.

"I trusted him," Kara said. She laughed, rough and unpleasant. "I don't trust a lot of people, and now I feel like a fool.When I asked him to take responsibility for birth control, I trusted him. When he went all wide eyed and like, oh, wow, I guess there was an accident, I trusted him. When he told me that he loved me and wanted to do this with me, I trusted him. When he told me to move in with him, to take time off my job, that he'd take care of me, I trusted him. When he told me that he didn't want to get engaged until I met his parents, I trusted him. I kind of ran out of trust when he got nervous as we were waiting for the plane to Pasadena and started saying 'well, I know they'll make sure you're taken care of, even if they don't want me to marry you. And they'll be shocked that you're pregnant, but I'll explain how it was a medical thing. I mean, you had to go off birth control, right? It wasn't your fault that you were careless, and I didn't know that slipping it off when it was getting good would make a difference.' He hadn't even told them I existed. He didn't have a job. He just lived off of their allowance, and my money when I still had some. Fucking freeloader."

Alex didn't know what to say. That was a lot. It sounded like a lot of lies had all come down at once.

Kara sighed, looking down at her hands. "I'm sorry if I've been ungrateful. I'm just . . . a little short on trust these days."

"What a tool," Alex said. It felt like a neutral, pleasant thing to say--rather than, 'I want to string that guy up by his balls.'

But she wanted to string that guy up by his balls.

Kara laughed, and then suddenly she was crying again. "Sorry," she managed. "Hormones."

Alex did not comment that ending a relationship six months into a pregnancy was probably a perfectly good reason to burst out into tears. Kara was being incredibly level-headed for the circumstances.

"Here," Alex said, handing over her phone. She'd seen Kara's phone. It was probably ten years old and had no internet. "Call your bank and everything else. I'm a security specialist. I don't like him having your wallet."

Kara took it and looked at her. "Thanks," she said. She didn't try to defend her ex, say that there was no way he'd be so petty as to keep using her accounts. It seemed like it ought to be surprising, but it wasn't. She'd said she was short on trust.

She called, Alex occasionally prompting her on what to say to get her pin numbers changed and her credit cards reissued.

"You know where you're going?"

Kara nodded. "I texted a friend. She says it's okay if I stay for a while."

"Good," Alex said. She stayed quiet for a moment. "And you'll be okay, with a baby?" Only after asking, did she realize it was entirely not her business.

Kara laughed again, tearily. "Fucked if I know."

"But you . . . want it? Even knowing, well, even knowing that the source of half its genetic material is a tool?"

This time Kara's laugh was warmer. She didn't answer right away though, and looked out through the window at the afternoon. "I felt--" she said eventually, "--I felt like I got duped into it. Even when I trusted him I felt that way. Like the world said, haha, fuck you. As if you haven't had it hard enough, you were fool enough to get knocked up. But he was so excited. He would have gotten bored, he got bored of everything, but he kept crowing about this. He'd  _ made _ something. It was really irritating. I was like, you had hardly anything to do with this. It's my body that's building this. You provided an incomplete and defective blueprint. My body is the plant, the construction site, the maintenance and the engineer. And thinking about it that way, well, it felt . . . cool."

Alex felt herself grin, and glanced over at Kara who met her gaze and smiled back. It was cool. She was building a human.

"Maybe, if I get my shit straightened out, it'll be like a second chance." Kara looked away. "I lost my baby cousin in foster care. I was supposed to look after him. I didn't get to."

Suddenly it had gotten too heavy again. Alex hated this. Kara didn't seem to mind telling her these things, but it felt unfair somehow, weighted. Alex, not being visibly pregnant, or visibly recently dumped, was safe from the same kind of questions.

"I just-- my mom asked me the other day if because I was gay I didn't want kids."

"That's stupid," Kara said "Plenty of gay people want kids."

Alex nodded. "I know other people do. I just-- I didn't know whether or not I did. I feel like you should really know, before you go and grab a kid and then realize, no, this isn't for me. But also, maybe it would be easier to imagine, if I . . . could hold down a steady relationship, wasn't a consultant who lives in hotels all over the country for months at a time, was ever around kids so I could see what it was like."

"Well," Kara said, offering her a slight smile and a light shrug. "If you're around in three months, I'll be looking for a babysitter."

Alex sat up stiffly at that and tried not to wobble the steering wheel. Were they friends now? Did this unforseen series of events make them friends?

"Okay," Alex said.

Kara looked startled too, glancing over, but then she nodded and settled back into her seat. "Cool."

"Oh look, cows," Alex pointed out, when she saw some cows. Sometimes, she was not great at changing the subject.

Kara laughed. "You'd probably be good with kids."

Alex smiled to herself, glancing in her mirror at the pretty girl sitting next to her. For such a heavy conversation, the inside of the car felt light again. It was nice to come out to a stranger and not have the words sink like a lead balloon. It always felt like too much information, too personal, why'd you put that on me. She hadn't expected Kara to blink, not after how casually she'd pretended Alex was her partner at the rental car place, but it was nice to say it and it be accepted, as a matter of course.

Kara switched the radio station. A song came on that had played at the end of the last Sad Main Cast Death episode of one of the medical dramas Alex watched. Kara griped about it. Alex was glad Sad Main Cast Character was gone, and the conversation segued into a discussion of the tv they'd been marathoning alone. (Kara's ex had had terrible taste in TV. Alex spent a lot of time alone in hotel rooms with nothing for company but Netflix.) They had binged a lot of the same shows, and liked similar things. Kara laughed after the third time they had the exchange 'you like that, I like that too!'

"I'd ask you over for a movie night if you weren't two hours away. And if I had a place to live."

Alex shrugged, pleased. "My hotel room is always open, and usually has two beds."

Kara sat back, contemplating her, as if she was something special. "Could be fun. Pizza?"

"Of course."

Alex drove up to the apartment building that Kara directed them to, and parked. She got out when Kara did, locking the car, and glancing around, checking the neighborhood. She examined the lock and the buzzer on the door. It seemed pretty good so far.

Kara hit the button by the name Sawyer, and a voice came out of the speaker. "That you, babe?"

"It's me. It's Kara," Kara said, and the buzzer rang, letting them in.

It seemed like a good safe place. Alex felt like she should probably leave now, but Kara held the interior door open and tipped her head as if waiting for her to come along. So Alex did. Then she took Kara's dufflebag away from her. They had a lot of steps to climb.

Kara shook her head. "You're being annoying again."

"You aren't respecting your own limitations."

"This is why people keep thinking you're the dad."

Kara bounded up the stairs, far quicker and more energetically than anyone six months pregnant should have.

"One person! One person thought I was the dad!"

The duffle was surprisingly heavy.

Kara reached the door a definite amount before Alex. When it opened, the woman inside was small but sturdy. She grinned, dimples opening up on her face. "Hey Kara," She looked at Alex. "So you're the dad?"

Alex sputtered indignantly. "You told her to say that."

"Did not!"

"Did so!"

Alex lunged for Kara's phone to try and get the evidence. Kara was laughing, keeping it away, and her friend was shaking her head, and telling them both to come in.

#

Alex came out of the bathroom, glad to have a place to wash her hands, to find Kara being wrapped up in a hug by her friend, whose name was Maggie. They were murmuring softly to each other, and Alex tried to stay quiet and unobtrusive. "Glad you dumped the douchebag. You can stay here as long as you need."

"Thank you."

"And only you could have, at six months pregnant and blotchy from crying, seduced a grouchy commuter into buying you a ticket and driving you home."

Alex realized her presence had been noted. Kara scrunched her nose at Maggie. "I didn't seduce anyone."

"Yet," Maggie grinned.

"Didn't have to," Kara said, and pulled Alex in, looping her arms around her neck. "Alex is my hero."

"Hero is a far cry from annoyingly nosy," Alex retorted.

"Well, you're that too."

Alex wasn't entirely sure how it happened, but she was invited to stay for dinner. There was Thai takeout on the sofa, passing boxes back and forth, (germsss), and being the audience for what seemed to be an endless sequence of embarrassing stories that Maggie and Kara were trying to tell about each other.

It was the sort of interaction that Alex so rarely had, with her job and having really given up on dating. The closest had been working late into the evening with Winn. She told some stories about him, which got laughs. She'd apologize to him later . . . or not.

She'd tease him about it later. And, well, she'd tell him enough of the story that he could tease her in return.

When it was finally time to leave--she was still on California time and it felt quite early, but morning would come early too, and she needed to make it back in time to get some sleep--Maggie, surprisingly, hugged her goodbye. She gave Alex her phone number. "Don't be a stranger. If you're in town, let's hang out."

Kara followed her down to the car, lingering on the sidewalk as Alex checked the tires.

"Thank you for this," Kara said. "I owe you."

Alex shook her head. "It was my pleasure. I mean it."

It felt like that should have been the moment to say goodbye, but neither of them moved. Alex was unable to look away from her face and the soft wry smile. Then Kara stepped into her, wrapping her arms around her firmly. "Thank you," she said again. "Thank you for being someone I could trust."

Alex held on, breathing in the scent that she'd gotten used to in the car, feeling her warmth, sensitive to the odd way Kara's round stomach pressed into hers. She'd done her job, done what she had to do. She'd gotten Kara home safe. It felt . . . unexpectedly good.

Slowly, ever so slowly, they released. But before they split completely, Kara turned her head to kiss her cheek. Alex turned her head also, and the kiss fell on the corner of her mouth.

Something fluttered up like a startled bird in Alex's chest. Kara's eyes were wide, an emotion in them that Alex didn't know how to read. But she knew that if she kissed Kara properly right then, Kara would kiss her back.

But then she'd pull away. She wouldn't want to ask for too much, to invite Alex too deep into the messy hole that was her life.

Alex squeezed her arm instead. "Let me know when you're up for that movie night," she said. "I'm in Pittsburgh for a while. Two hours isn't far at all."

"Okay," Kara said.

She stayed out on the sidewalk while Alex drove away.

Two and a half hours later, when Alex had finally found her hotel and gotten in her room, she got a text.  _ Maggie's working nights next weekend. Come and crash here with me? _

She had six texts from Winn, two from her boss, one from the company she was visiting the next day, but the first one she responded to was Kara's.

_ Yes _ .

###

  
  



	8. The Same Story Again and Again

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sticking this here even though it wasn't a tumblr prompt, just something I was playing with. (I have kind of a backlog of weird things.)
> 
> This is sort of a blend of a few of the universes from the 2017 Kink Meme fills (https://archiveofourown.org/works/12994767/chapters/29712894). You can read it as Kalex, or, as I like to do, as low-key pre-Supersanvers.
> 
> Gender, Mon-El being an ass, and alien attitudes to trans issues show up. 
> 
> **TW: Transphobia.**

The look on Mon-El's face was one Kara hadn't seen before. She'd thought she'd seen most of them, his charming asshole look, his confused puppy-just-wants-to-get-home look, his serious-romantic-interest look. But this-- it wasn't that.

It was still, taut but not tense, brow just a tad lowered. His mouth was curled, just enough, lips pulling away from his teeth.

It looked like  _ disgust _ .

But-- that didn't make sense.

Kara bit her lip, drawing her arms back into herself. She'd been nervous about committing to sex. It wasn't something she'd ever really wanted, not with a person. Being aroused and dealing with it was one thing, but having someone touch her--she'd never been in a situation where that seemed like a natural outcome, and pursuing it just felt odd. She'd been young when she left Krypton, but sexual intimacy on Krypton had seemed a little more momentous than that. Not something to do with a stranger.

Mon-El had pursued her though. He'd kissed her, unasked, pressed her, made funny faces and grunting sounds when he put his hands on her. That was being wanted, right? He wasn't a stranger. It was supposed to be okay.

<<You're  _ male _ ?>>

Kara stared at him. He'd spoken Daxamite, but the word  _ male _ was the same as in Kryptonian. "What?"

He gestured, one short sharp movement of his hand, his mouth pinched hard. <<What do you call that?>>

Kara looked down. She'd let herself fall back on the bed in one of the poses humans seemed to think were sexy. But otherwise, there was nothing different about her than usual. Kryptonians weren't the same as humans under their clothes, but they ought to be the same as Daxamites. Her taut stomach led down to her  _ kheffir _ , and there was a hint of blue where her  _ arral _ which had been rising and unfurling--now rather deflated--curled over her thigh. " _ Arral _ ?"

"Yes!" Mon-El snapped. "You have an  _ arral _ . You're a man!"

It was like a gut punch. Kara jerked the blanket over herself. "What-- what's wrong with you?" Her face felt hot and it was sickening. "Why would that make me male? I'm female, I picked it when I was four. It doesn't--"

Mon-El's eyes went wide. "You don't  _ pick _ ."

"Everyone on Krypton picks. You can change if you like later. But I've never wanted to. Even on Earth, I like being a girl." The knowledge started to well up from back in Kara's long forgotten knowledge. "Wait-- you mean, Daxam  _ still _ thinks that your organs and your gender are the same?" It sounded absurd. "I mean,  _ humans _ think like that, but humans are a type zero civilization."

"Of course they're the same! You Kryptonians think you're better than us, and you don't even know that?"

"They're not." Kara didn't understand this. This was basic, obvious. How could he be so resistant to something that was  _ logical _ . "If they were, then--"

Mon-El shook his head. "Of course they are. I thought you were a girl. I don't want to fuck someone with an  _ arral _ ."

The words hit. This wasn't just him being stupid, this was a  _ rejection _ . "You said-- you said you loved me."

"Not  _ this _ you." He looked sad. "If you hadn't led me on, I wouldn't be so disappointed now." His eyes flicked to her waist. "But I won't touch that. I'm happy being male. Touching it will make me less male."

"I don't  _ want _ you to touch it! I wouldn't want anyone touching me who thinks that they know better than me who I am." Kara stood, dragging the sheet around herself. She cast Mon-El a glare as she turned to go. "My mother was  _ right _ about Daxamians. But I was willing to see who you were as a person. I wish you hadn't proved me wrong!"

#

"Don't turn on the lights."

Alex paused in her doorway, holding to her chest the shopping bag full of things she’d gotten with Maggie but wasn’t ready to let Kara see yet. The windows let in only the ambient light of the city streets, but it was enough to make out the too small bundle on the corner of her sofa.

"Hey," she said.

It hadn't been smooth with her and Kara lately. She'd been absorbed, tangled up in Maggie and dating and having so many new expectations coming from every direction--not just Maggie, who at least was pretty clear about what she wanted if Alex managed to listen, but from society, from old movies, from the remembered tone of her mother's voice. She hadn't had time for her sister.

Kara's voice had a shake to it that Alex hadn't heard since Midvale.

"What's wrong?" Alex moved toward the couch, hesitantly settling down on the other end, as Kara wrapped herself up tighter and shook her head.

"Nothing." The sadness was still there.

"Kar--"

"I'm just  _ ashamed _ ." She snapped it. There was something broken in it. Alex's chest got tight and she balled her hands into fists.

_ "Tell me." _

"You wouldn't understand! Humans-- Daxamites . . . "

"Did Mon-El do something? Say something?"

Kara was silent.

Alex leaned forward. "I've got lead slugs. I'll kill him for you."

Another moment of silence, and then Kara let out a breath. She laughed softly. "Don't. But thank you."

The guilt in Alex weighed even more heavily. "I'm sorry." She shook her head. "I should have kept him away from you, not encouraged you to date him. I knew he was bad news, but I was just such a mess, and I-- I don't know anything about relationships."

"Alex . . ."

Kara would try to comfort her and deny it, Alex knew, even when she was the one crying on the sofa, but this was a fact: Alex was shit at relationships. Maggie was a fucking saint, putting up with her nonsense. "I  _ will _ kill him, if you ask. People say I don't think of aliens as people, but if he was a human guy who'd hurt you, I'd kill him too."

Kara softened a little, leaning into the back of the couch, but still not reaching out and closing the distance between them. Alex didn't like that. When Kara was sad, Alex should be holding her. That was the rule.

"I thought--" Kara sighed. "I thought I was wrong. My aunt, my mom, they were both wrong about so much when I thought they were infallible, that I thought maybe, just maybe, they were wrong about Daxamites."

Alex watched her body language, the sadness in it. "But they weren't."

Kara's lips twitched.

"It got to you, when he said you were prejudiced." Had that been it? Had that been the thing that made Kara decide to date the douchey alien fratboy? Talk about a guilt trip.

"My mom let our world die," Kara said, her voice flat and cold. "Because of tradition. Because of the inability to consider being wrong."

Alex didn't know what to say to that. She reached out and touched Kara's hand. Kara looked up, the diffuse light from outside catching her eyes and making the tears in them glisten.

"I've never been ashamed of this before and I don't know what to do."

Alex tightened her grip on her hand. "You know you don't have to be ashamed of anything with me."

Kara looked down at their joined hands and sighed. "I-- I'm scared that isn't true. But I know that if I let that fear make me not tell you about it, the fear will just grow. Grow and grow until I don't trust you."

"Then tell me." Alex shook her head hard. "I couldn't bear you not trusting me. I mean, I told you I was gay almost as soon as I knew myself, and I was so scared, but I knew you wouldn't change the way you felt about me because of it. It's nothing in comparison to what we've been through, right? Even though I've been a fuck-up, we're still-- Kara and Alex, right?"

The way Kara looked at her with hope in her eyes always felt like a beam of light, a beacon to follow through a dark sea. Then she shut them.

"He called me  _ male _ ."

The words stumbled out all in a rush and Alex couldn't understand them. "What?"

"Male! Like-- like some sort of cave person. Like . . ."

Alex frowned. "There's something I'm not following here."

"We were going to have sex," Kara said.

Alex recoiled. "Ugh, why?"

Kara sagged slightly. "I thought-- I thought I might as well." Her eyes shifted to the side, scanning Alex in a way that made Alex very uncomfortable. Her little sister wasn't supposed to give her a 'once-over.' The flip in her stomach was obviously because of how inappropriate it was.

" _ Kara _ ."

"You're all glowy all the time."

Alex flushed. "That doesn't--"

Kara's eyes were narrow, her mouth disapproving. Alex ducked her head, embarrassed. It was true though. It wasn't the  _ sex _ that made her giddy and stupid. At least it wasn't  _ only _ the sex.

"But I guess that won't ever happen for me."

" _ Kara _ ."

"It doesn't matter. I never really wanted it. I just wanted to see what it was like. But . . . sometimes it’s so hard to be Kryptonian. I thought Daxamites would be closer than humans, but their close biology makes the cultural differences so much larger."

The scientist in Alex clicked on. She cocked her head, frowning. Aliens were a puzzle. "Why did Mon-El call you male?"

"His stupid culture thinks that one stupid organ stands in for everything, all of the complexities and learned behaviors and interactions that distinguish male from female. He thinks that there is no such thing as a female with an  _ arral _ , or a male with a  _ kvelot _ . And he thinks," she scoffed loudly, "that to so much as touch an  _ arral _ would make his own shrivel up and die."

Alex stared. This was . . . this was not what she'd expected. She swallowed deeply and took a breath. "So," she said. "You took off your pants and he didn't like what he found there?"

It felt like an alarm siren was blaring in her head, Kara-- Kara is what? has what? But she clamped down on it as hard as she could. That wasn't the point. Kara needed support. She remembered her own clutch of fear as Maggie finagled her out of her jeans the first time, the very careful, very formal way she'd kept eye contact with Alex, let her eyes go lazy as her hands closed on Alex's hips,  _ appreciative. _ That was how you were supposed to be. Appreciative. Not like the asshole guys who'd sat back to take a look, judging, as if checking to see if she measured up. Kara having her first time treated like that? She didn’t care what Kara said, she would kill that douchebag.

Kara had huddled back into herself in the corner of the sofa. "I know my body," she said. "And I know my gender. They don't-- they don't conflict. It's like, I'm a woman with blond hair. I am a woman with an  _ arral _ . I am a woman with  _ feet _ . What is  _ wrong _ with him that he can't see that?"

Alex sat back and looked at her for a long time. Something strange was yelling and dancing in the back of her mind, begging for attention, but she would not give it. Kara was the only important thing. "You know why prejudice is bad?"

Kara looked at her with a frown.

"Because it keeps us from seeing what's really there. It makes us look through a tiny keyhole, and view everything from that very limited vantage-point."

" _ What haven't I seen _ ?"

"Not you. You've never been prejudiced. You see people. You looked past him being a Daxamite to really see him." And this was a truth. No matter the lies that she’d told, Kara had always known Alex in a way no one else did, always known what was important. Alex gestured awkwardly to herself. "You've always seen me."

"You're . . ." Kara rested her head against the back of the couch. ". . . easy to look at."

Warmth spread through Alex's chest, and her mind calmed. "If he can't stretch his mind to see you as you are, he's the one who's blind."

"You can?"

Alex took a deep breath, feeling shaky. She hadn't planned on talking about this yet. She'd barely managed to bring up the subject with Maggie--her go-to-guru on all queer issues. "I didn't know Kryptonians felt that way about biological sex and gender."

Kara shrugged. "With the Codex, biological sex stopped meaning anything. No one did sex to have babies. In fact, it was prohibited. There was disease and genetic factors involved, so everyone was made infertile. So then, there was only gender. Gender and bodies. I bathed with my parents, it was no surprise to see an  _ arral _ on my mother and aunt, no more than it was to see that they had a longer second toe than their first toe."

"Humans aren't . . . there yet."

"You  _ are _ a type zero civilization."

Alex kicked her. "Hold on for a moment." She slipped off the couch taking the bag that held the stash of clothes Maggie had been helping her collect. She ducked into the bathroom for a moment, slid out of her work gear and pulled on the beanie and binder, baggy jeans and an oversized hoodie.

"Hey," she said when she went back out, dropping her voice. "What about me?" She swallowed hard. "If I-- If I said that, that sometimes I feel like being a guy, would that . . . upset you?"

Kara's eyes were wide, and so deeply blue. Her lips were parted. She stared at Alex as if she was seeing something utterly unfamiliar and something  _ known _ all at the same time. And then her face changed, eyes crinkling, surprise sliding into a smile.

In a blink of superspeed she was in Alex's face, tugging at his hoodie and adjusting his beanie. "You look  _ adorable _ ."

Alex glared. "Adorable was not what I was going for."

This did not stop Kara from smiling even a tad. "Sorry. You look handsome. Is that better? Very handsome."

Embarrassed, Alex laughed and ducked his head, but Kara's hand was on his cheek and he couldn't. Kara kept his head turned so he could not break their gaze. "I mean it. When you tell me about yourself, I believe you. I mean, who would know better about you than you?"

"Same," Alex said, dumbly. Kara was too close, her eyes too bright, her lips too soft. "I love you."

There was a moment, her breath on his cheek, her head tipping forward, her silken hair falling over his neck, that he was sure Kara was about to kiss him. He wasn’t sure he could handle that. But she just leaned into Alex, her warmth close and stable and precious. "I love you too."

###

 


	9. Ring Pops (or 5 times Kara and Alex got engaged)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things that are facts: from the ages of 13-18, Alex and Kara got engaged at least four times. Most times it was a passing thought, or both assumed it was a joke, but the final time ended with Kara throwing a ring-pop at Alex. It cut through the sleeve of her jacket and long-sleeved shirt and made her arm bleed.
> 
> Alex, having come shockingly close to death by ring-pop, was suddenly very aware that she was no longer engaged. As she hadn't thought she was engaged in the first place, this reaction was bewildering, but no less true.
> 
> They did not get engaged for good until they were in their late twenties. This also involved a ring-pop.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this ended up being unexpectedly long. But it's going in this collection because it was definitely from a tumblr prompt. This one: https://gardenoffish.tumblr.com/post/164420038886/person-a-i-like-to-think-our-engagement-was
> 
> Of course, I prompted it to other people, and then immediately went and wrote it myself. As you do.
> 
> Also, warnings for UNREPENTANT FLUFF. And headhopping. It was intentional, don't jump on me.

(1)

The first time Alex and Kara got engaged, only Kara knew about it. Kal had brought her to the Danvers and told Kara she was joining their house. Kal did his best with the Kryptonian, but he didn't know what 'joining their house' really meant. What he said was that Kara was to be of the house of Danvers now, and she was to share living space with her new  _ kriei _ , her 'bright one’--the casual Kryptonian word for fiancée. The head of her house had said so. Kara, scared and upset and so alone, was engaged.

 

(Later, Kara realized him saying  _ kriei _ was just his mispronunciation of  _ rr-ie _ , 'your sister.' The word 'sister' was obviously entirely inappropriate too, as no girl on Krypton had a sister (save her mother, and twins were . . . different) unless you were part of a religious order, so really, there was no way Kara could have guessed that was what Kal was trying to say with his atrocious accent. He couldn’t roll an /r/ to save his life and she still yelled at him for the way he pronounced /e/ like an American. If he'd just say it like anyone who spoke Spanish, or Italian, or Japanese, or any reasonable language, he wouldn't get it so direly wrong.)

 

Kara, who did not want to join another family’s house, did not want to share a room with a flimsy human, and did not want a fiancée, watched Alex with a large degree of trepidation. She wouldn't be expected to share her food, would she? That was normal for  _ kriei _ on Krypton, but Kara had found that on Earth she was very hungry, and she was very not pleased with the idea that Alex could just eat from her plate whenever she wanted.

 

It soon became clear that Alex, though grouchy and unwelcoming, was not looking to eat from her plate or share her clothes or her bathtime, and Kara relaxed. She found that Alex, though she would pretend annoyance, didn't mind when Kara hoovered up her leftovers. And, well, Kara liked Alex's sweatshirts. They were comfy and smelled nice. Maybe, Kara thought, she didn't mind having a fiancée after all. 

 

Then, of course, Kal had come back and been all jovial about how well she was getting along with her new  _ ie _ and Kara had realized, with an unexpected sense of disappointment, that she had never been engaged after all, and it was probably lucky he'd shown up before she'd really gotten used to the idea and tried to join Alex in the bath.

 

The sharing food and clothes parts were nice though. If Alex didn't mind, Kara wasn't going to stop.

 

(2)

The second time Alex and Kara got engaged, Alex had been teaching Kara how to write her name in cursive. The basic cursive taught in school was boring, so they were looking up old handwriting styles on the internet and trying out the loops and curves with all the names they had between them. Alex Danvers, Alexandra Danvers, Alexandra Grace Danvers, Kara Zor-El, Kara Danvers, Kara Amanda Danvers--the Amanda was not part of her name at all, but Alex had decided that she needed a middle name to practice with--Kara Zor-El Danvers, Alex Zor-El--Alex liked that one. She said it made her look fierce. Kara laughed at it though.

"You'd really be my sister if that was your name," she said.

"Yeah? So I wouldn't take that name if I married into your house?"

"No, you'd take the house and add it to your name--if you were houseless. Which you are, because you're a human."

Alex stuck her tongue out and wrote in looping script, Alexandra Danvers-El. "Or would it be Alex Jeremiah-El?"

"No," Kara said, staring at the name written on the sheet of paper. "House-born girls carry the name of the house founder. In founded the house of Ze. The house of El got a little muddled because of having male twins, where both should be able to carry on the house name. I would have been Kara Mek-El, but since I'm the child of the younger son, I took his name to signify that I was not of the main line."

"Still sounds like patriarchal bullshit," Alex said.

"Yes, Alex Danvers, daughter of Jeremiah Danvers, and Eliza Danvers whose name was once Wexler except for that patriarchal bullshit."

Alex stuck out her tongue. "Mom didn't like her last name. Well, more importantly there was already an Elizabeth Wexler who was a well-known biochemist, so she married Dad to make herself more distinctive in her field."

Kara did not quite understand this, but it sounded funny so she laughed when Alex did.

"Some people hyphenate when they get married. Then I'd be Alexandra Danvers-El either way, and you'd be Kara Danvers-El." Alex frowned, cocking her head. "Would you ever be Kara Danvers-El on Krypton? If Danvers was my house, maybe? Or my house founder?"

"If we were both the heirs to our houses," Kara said. "As it is, if you were your house's heir, and since I'm not the main line, I'd be Kara Danvers." She tipped her head up to offer Alex a slight smile. "I suppose we have it right then, since you are your house's heir on Earth, and I'm the titleless interloper."

"No," Alex said, more firmly than either one of them expected. "Your house is more valuable than that. Danvers-El or nothing."

Kara looked at her, and then turned back to the page and looked at the name she had written, Alexandra Danvers-El, for a long moment. Underneath it, Kara wrote her name as Kara Danvers-El and then circumscribed them both with a shield-shaped cartouche.

"What does that mean?" Alex asked, knowing the shape from Superman's crest.

"That we are joining our houses."

"Oh," said Alex, softly.

Kara looked over at her, and then nudged their shoulders together. That was the right sort of awed sound to be deemed worthy of joining a noble Kryptonian house. Once she was grown, Alex would probably do.

 

(3)

The third time Alex and Kara got engaged was in the summer after Kara had been going to school a year. School hadn't been good for their relationship; Alex had grown cold and snappish, and Kara had been lonely and confused. When summer came again, and Kara broke Alex's arm trying to be a hero, Kara was pretty sure that was it. Whatever small budding friendship they'd had, it was dead.

 

But prevented from surfing or splashing in the water with her friends, Alex had given up the cold shoulder and instead taken Kara on long rambles up the rocks and over the dunes, telling her odd things about humans and their culture.

 

"My parents were teenagers in the seventies," Alex said. "Oh my god, they're old. And my dad was a big hippie. You should see some of the pictures of him, with these super huge glasses and peace signs all over his vest. He was a throwback even then. One of the reasons we live out here is because this is where Dad proposed."

 

Kara looked around. They had trekked up to the top of a promontory, and Alex was clearly winded and beat, but not willing to show weakness. "Just,  _ outside _ ? Like this?" Proposals on Krypton had been accompanied by long drawn out dinner parties, where everyone sat on the floor and drank  _ sheblis _ , which made it very difficult to lie. Of course, no one would ever dream of just proposing to someone. Everything went through the Codex and through the house.

 

"Yup." Alex took a step, and her foot hit a wobbly rock. Too tired to catch herself, she fell to one knee. Then, as if she could fool Kara's high speed perception by being smooth, she turned toward Kara and picked a big purple succulent bloom. "Marry me?" she asked. "Rings are for squares."

 

With the strange ocean crashing below, the mostly incomprehensible words, the cultural practices she didn't understand, Kara felt truly like an alien, but in a different way than she’d felt when she'd crashed and the world she expected had been turned upside down. She felt like an adventurer, encountering a friendly native, and discovering the culture of this new world by plunging in head first. She accepted the flower and smiled at Alex. "Yes."

 

It had just been a goofy joke, and both Kara and Alex knew it, but it didn't stop them from being unexpectedly giggly on the way home, and though it was just to make sure Alex wouldn't slip down the precarious paths, Kara held her unbroken hand. Alex kept glancing at their joined hands and getting pink. She did, of course, slip on the paths, and it was a good thing Kara was holding on or she might have had a matching set of casts.

 

(4)

Alex and Kara didn't get engaged again until a good while after Jeremiah died. They'd had to grow up then, quite a lot, and the guilt from that last flight had done a lot of damage to their already fraught friendship.

But it had been a day, and Kara was up on the roof, looking out at the ocean. Alex climbed up next to her, sitting quietly.

There was a thank you somewhere in the way she leaned on Kara’s shoulder. Eliza was not feeling well, and together they'd done their best to keep her comfortable and distracted until the drugs kicked in and she could sleep. Alex had a way of putting away her own grief, of closing it up into a little box until she got the work of the day done. But Kara had seen her crumble too many times.

Sometimes, Alex would lean on her. And Kara felt that it was right, to have those times, to be the comforter, because Alex's presence had always given her a steadiness, when it felt that her world was still exploding all around her, Alex's breath, awake and steady, was a tether she could latch onto. Alex, sitting beside her here, under the stars, seemed to find the same stability and peace. When everything was gone, sometimes one stable or co-shifting point to fix on could be enough.

"Here," Alex said, offering her a crackling packet that smelt like fake grape. "They were handing them out at work."

Kara took the ring-pop, cupping it in her hand, shifting the air inside the wrapper. "A ring, Miss Danvers?" she teased. "Are you asking what I think you're asking?"

Kara appreciated the superpowers that let her sense Alex’s blush even in the darkness.

"Shut up," Alex grumbled, nudging her with her elbow.

They sat in silence for a long time, looking up. Kara could still see the glint of light and feel the electromagnetic waves radiating from Rao, though the star itself was gone.

"What do you say on Krypton?" Alex asked then, softly. "Does it . . . does it give any instructions for when your partner is gone?"

Sometimes the puzzle that was Alex seemed almost locked into Kara's brain, because she could feel that this would be a difficult thing to parse for most people, but as if the currents and trends of Alex's worries were bright and visible to her, she knew what it meant. Kara wished she had answers for what to do about Eliza, for what to do about Alex, so lost, now that she was walking alone.

"Not really. The engagement ritual is pretty simple. At dawn, after the party, the couple stands in the window, or I  _ guess _ you could do it outside, though that's pretty barbaric." Alex stuck her tongue out at Kara. "Anywhere you're in the light of Rao. And then you just say, well, it's old language, but it translates to 'walk with me. Stay at my side,' and then the other one says, 'keep up.' It's pretty standard, used for the basis of most oaths of loyalty. Marriage, vassalry, non-blood kinship."

Alex stared at her, her mouth quirking into bemusement. "I think I've said that to you a hundred times." Alex narrowed her eyes. "And you always answer with some sort of 'I'm not slowing down for you. You better keep up.'"

Caught, Kara chuckled. "Well, you would keep saying the first half. Private joke."

"Your translation jokes are never funny."

"They're super funny. You're just too slow, human."

"Goddamn alien." Alex tackled her and Kara let her wrestle the ring-pop away, while making sure she didn't slide right off the roof.

"Ugh, you don't even like ring-pops," Kara protested, when she had been stripped of it.

"I'll give it back. I just didn't do it right."

Kara looked up, curious. Alex was watching her, a half smile on her face making it gentle, not serious. Then suddenly she went shy. "I've been pretty mean to you, when you didn't have a choice about being here. I mean, apparently I've been demanding that you marry me every time we walk anywhere."

"Your arrogance is charming, human."

Alex scrunched her nose. "At least something about me is."

Kara let her head fall against Alex's shoulder. "You're very charming."

"I could be better." Alex's hand was on the small of Kara's back, rubbing gently, comfortingly. "I want to be better, for you."

Kara lifted her head slowly, looking at her Alex, bathed in the light of dead stars. "Then walk with me," she said. "Stay at my side."

Alex bit her lip and pressed the ring-pop back into her hand. "I'll try to keep up."

 

But a few months later, Alex decided to go to Stanford, and Kara agreed with Eliza that she ought to ease into the college environment with a few classes at the local JC. Alex didn't stay. And Kara couldn't keep up.

Alex didn't understand. That was the worst part. If she’d addressed it, acknowledged the fact that it was a temporary separation, that she regretted having to part, Kara could have handled it gracefully. It wasn’t like they were actually engaged. Kara hadn't thought that small oath would make them engaged. Without the loyalty of their houses it could only be a private oath, an oath of kinship. But it was still a promise.

 

But Alex didn't understand that she’d made a promise.  _ Take me, keep me _ . Kara didn’t ask. That was the minimum Alex was supposed to do. But she didn't even ask if Kara wanted to come to Palo Alto with her.

 

The fight was about some nonsense, about the color choices Alex was making for her dorm furniture. All dark blues and dark curtains and big dark posters and Kara just couldn't bear how she was walking into darkness, away from her, (away from her bright one, though that was silly and not relevant and meaningless on Earth) and they'd ended up yelling, Alex confused by how angry Kara was about her bedspread and Kara so angry that Alex was so headstrong, not listening to her suggestions, shutting her out, because Kara's opinion didn't matter, this was Alex’s room, Alex’s room wasn’t Kara's space anymore. Kara was rejected, she was left behind.

 

She hurled the ring-pop ring at Alex with such speed and force that it sliced through her shirt, through her arm. Alex gaped, clutching the wound. Kara realized what she'd done; she fled. And Alex drew her hand away from her arm to see the smear of blood.

 

She broke our engagement, Alex thought, and then felt sick and hot and confused. How could she break an engagement that didn't exist?

But something had been broken.

Alex picked up the candy from where it had fallen. Some of the sugar crystal had chipped off when it hit the wall.

Something had come to an end.

 

College was supposed to be different, to be better. Alex didn't have her mom--her pain and her demands--she didn't have responsibilities to the stranger-in-a-strange-land living in her room. She had amazing classes and new people who didn't think she was a nerd for loving bio as much as she did. She had all sorts of parties and activities and lots and lots of alcohol. But something felt wrong. Something felt empty.

 

She had so much. But she also had that little scar on her arm. And she had a roommate who was . . . fine. But she wasn’t Kara.

 

Her roommate would never wrap her up in an embrace from behind like Kara. Her roommate slept through the night, not lying awake, locked in the memories of her dying planet. She couldn't hear that Alex was awake, staying awake to be with her, even though they didn't talk. She wasn't an alien; her presence wasn't exciting in the way Kara's always was. She wasn't sarcastic about human science, and she wouldn't smile and encourage when Alex got an idea. Alex had never cared if Kara was actually listening, but it was so much easier to think problems through when Kara's ears were there and open, waiting for her to talk it out.

 

A few months in, Alex dreamed that her roommate asked her about the small scar on her arm. Dream!Alex laughed and said, 'my fiancée was pissed at me, threw her ring back at me. But it's okay now, we worked it out.'

On waking, she felt pleased and a little amused. And then the memory of the dream had come clear and the inside of her chest knotted up. She wanted to laugh, 'I called Kara my fiancée.' She wanted to run, 'I called Kara my  _ fiancée _ .' She wanted to cry. 'We didn't work it out. We're still wrong in a way we shouldn't be wrong. We still don't talk the way we should, comfort each other the way we should, protect each other the way we should. I fucked up.'

 

The dream lingered in her head. A boy asked her about the T-shirt that Kara had painted and sent her. Alex looked down at it and smiled. "My fiancée made it for me."

The boy looked surprised. "Cool," he said and left. 

The moment after she said it, Alex couldn't speak. She wanted to chase after him, shout, 'my sister, my sister, not my fiancée, I misspoke.’ But drawing attention to her mistake . . . it would draw attention to her mistake.

The boy didn't talk to her again. He'd been building up to ask her out, she realized later. He’d been surprised she was a freshman and already engaged. He probably thought she was from one of those weird religious families. He’d never picture Kara. And yet--

“My fiancée made it for me.”

Why did 'fiancée' sound so right when it referred to Kara?

 

Alex remembered saying it before, after the second time, up on the promontory, Kara taking her hand and Alex jokingly saying, "Thank you, my fiancée," Kara's eyes had lit up with warmth and pleasure.

Kara's hand in hers, Alex's chest had been light with mirth. What a great joke it was. They'd both kept laughing, at things that weren't funny at all. And Alex had thought, yes, they could be friends, they could be close like this. They could be happy.

 

But Alex hadn’t been born to be happy.

 

(5)

After Fort Rozz and Myriad and the pod, after they'd saved each other, things were different, but they were still so hard. Alex didn't know how to explain how much Kara meant to her. She’d shown it, hadn't she? Shown that she'd rather die than live without her? And Kara, well, Kara had shown that she would die for the Earth. Shown that she could weigh her own life in the balance and find it unworthy. 

They’d won. But Kara still seemed strangely distant, quiet, sometimes looking at Alex as if she saw a stranger there. Alex didn't know how to fix it.

 

A few weeks after, Alex was messing around with Barry's universe hopper and managed to get her computer connected to the multiverse. She found one of her alternate selves' instagrams, and her most popular tag: #mydumbassfiancée. The tag was full of pics of Kara trying to take too big a bite of dinner, trying to cuddle five dogs at once, trying to climb Alex, her arm wrapped around her shoulders, her chin on her head.

They had rings too, shown off on clasped hands with a nice filter. But more tellingly, in many of the pictures, they wore bracelets, mostly kept out of sight, but peeking out enough to make it clear to Alex, if not to a casual viewer, that they were promised in the Kryptonian tradition too.

_ Walk with me. _

For one Alex, at least, it hadn't been a joke.

 

Alex had a lot of feelings about Kara, and so many of them were love. It was a desperate love, a needing. But it wasn't romantic. Honestly, romantic love seemed thin and flimsy in comparison to how she felt about Kara.

But this other Alex-- For this other Alex, there was no separation. Her love was romantic, but just as painfully deep. Alex could see that. It hurt to see how much this other Alex loved Kara too.

It was the pride that hurt the most, this  other Alex's total, absolute pride. Showing off her beloved--the whole instagram was devoted to her Kara; 'Dumbass' used as a word of affection. There was no embarrassment, no shame. Kara had said yes, to  _ her _ , and there was nothing-- _ nothing _ \--that could measure up to that.

Alex envied their life. What would it be like to be a normal happy twenty-something couple, on the verge of figuring out what sort of shape their lives would take, but not afraid of it, because it came with the confidence of having an ally, having someone who was home?

It was impossible, so she let herself want it. It was a daydream. If the daydream happened to have illustrations of her and Kara, it didn't matter. It wasn't her Kara. She wouldn't screw up by thinking about it.

Not like that other time.

 

The tag was what got her in the end. #mydumbassfiancée. Alex had looked across universes too often. She knew exactly what sort of picture her alternate self would tag with those words. So when she was updating her carefully curated cover-identity’s social media--the one belonging to the Alex who had far more of a life than she really did, who had friends and went surfing and still drank PBR (lol)--uploading snapshots of her and Kara from the game night last week, she saw one and the tag felt just right. It looked like an image out of that other world, just them, goofing off, Kara with the silliest face.

She posted the photo without a second thought.

 

Twenty minutes later her phone buzzed with a DM from @MajorLLane saying WHAT THE FUCK, DANVERS. WHEN DID YOU AND SUNSHINE GET ENGAGED?

 

The problem was, Alex didn't have a lot of friends, and particularly not a lot of friends with her number. In those twenty minutes, when she didn't hear from anyone, Kara's phone was blowing up.

 

Alex deleted the post. 

 

It was too late.

 

The next text was from Cat Grant. Alex didn't even know Cat Grant had her number. Particularly not this number.  _ My office, _ it read.  _ Monday at 7am. _

_ What the hell? _

 

The next was from Winn, a screenshot of the post.  _ Did you get hacked????? O.O ??? _

 

The next from Vasquez.  _ Congrats! You two are adorable! Drinks on me! _

 

Alex let her head fall into her hands and leaned her elbows on the desk. What had she done? What had she  _ done _ ?

 

Fear clung like frost to the inside of her chest. None of these reactions mattered. It was Kara's that mattered. It was Kara's that she couldn't even imagine. Any response she tried to picture--would she laugh? would she be angry?--it all felt like a cartoon, exaggerated and false and empty. So Alex just sat and waited.

 

When Kara finally arrived, still smoky and sooty from the fire that had kept her away, she was quiet, moving in the way she did when she didn’t feel like she was the center of anyone's attention, all the awkwardness gone, like a lioness.

She had a soft small smile on her face, but whatever lay behind it was unreadable.

"So," she said. "All our friends seem to think we're engaged?"

Alex couldn't find any words. She searched and searched, but all her stores were empty.

_ My fiancée. _ Those were the only words that lingered. But Kara's distance from her made them hurt. Alex hadn't done it right. She hadn't found a way to make them heal after Myriad. She hadn't let them become whole again.

"I love how not surprised everyone is." Kara smiled wryly, flipped through her texts. "Lena's pissed. She put three champagne glass emojis at the end of her 'congratulations, I didn't know you were dating.' Yup, pissed."

"She's in love with you," Alex said, and then wished she hadn't. She'd been keeping that to herself. She hadn’t wanted to think too deeply about why.

Kara snorted. "Playing the long game. What about your new friend, Maggie? How'd she feel about the news?"

"What?" Alex frowned. What did Detective Sawyer have to do with anything? "She's a normal person and like a normal person doesn't have an instagram." Just then her phone buzzed. It was a text from Sawyer, a photo of the photo in a browser window on a desktop computer screen. There was a indecipherable mass of emojis at the bottom. Alex stared. U :gun: :gun: :two-girls-holding-hands: :heart: :purple-heart: :double-heart: :two-girls-holding-hands: :ring: :supermans-crest: :girl: !!!!!!?????@!!!#$%^&*!

Suddenly it came clear.  _ Are you engaged to Supergirl? _ Fuck. Goddammit, Maggie hadn't met Kara yet. But she'd met Supergirl and seen her and Alex together. Alex needed to get over there with an NDA. 

"Let's not talk about that," Alex said and shoved her phone into her pocket. She stuck her hand into her hair. "I'm sorry," she said. "It was a mistake. I was distracted. I just--" The excuses didn't make sense, not without the context, so Alex opened to her alternate self's instagram. "I read this . . . sometimes. I guess I just figured it was the right tag. I wasn't thinking."

Her expression curious, Kara sat down at the computer. She scrolled.

Alex backed away.

Kara was still looking through the photos after ten minutes, and Alex couldn't stop watching her. This wasn't-- she couldn’t say it wasn't the reaction she'd expected, because she hadn't expected anything. She hadn't known what to expect.

But this . . .

"They look really happy."

Alex moved up to stand at her shoulder, looking at the pic of that other AlexandKara, all windswept and tangled on a very familiar promontory, wrapped around each other, Kara looking an instant from liftoff, and Alex not very far behind in learning how to fly. It made Alex's eyes sting. She pulled out her phone and flipped to the photo she'd mistagged. She showed it to Kara. "So do we."

Alex didn't know what she was saying, what she was asking, if she was asking anything, or simply pointing out why she made that mistake. But she needed Kara to see it. She needed Kara to see what she'd seen.

Kara looked at the photograph, then looked at her, then back at the photograph. Her voice was very small. "We do."

There was nothing more to be said.

 

There had been a moment, back in Midvale, when the ring pop lay broken on the floor, and Alex had looked at her as if she had cracked her world in two, when Kara had let herself believe that Alex understood. She’d understood what their promise meant, seen her mistake, and would make up for it. She’d wrap her arms around Kara, going for the top half of the hug, whisper  _ I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I never meant for you to feel abandoned. _

Maybe she’d even kiss Kara--a silly human affectation that Kara had only found herself daydreaming about in the past few months. It seemed nice.

But Alex hadn’t apologized. She’d just picked up the ring pop, stared at it, as if there was writing on it in a foreign language, and then left anyway. 

She’d left anyway.

Kara was alone.

Eventually Kara accepted it. They had never been engaged. It had always been a game. And their relationship, the thin, cool, unintimate bond of ‘sisters’ was all they ought to have. It was fine. Alex would never have made a suitable mate for a Kryptonian anyway. She didn’t understand about oaths.

Kara was the last daughter of Krypton. Of course she was alone. It would not stop her. She would live and thrive alone.

But after Myriad, after Alex came for her, brought her back to Earth, Kara no longer knew how she was supposed to feel. She had been fine before, discontent with her life, but certain that a relationship with a human would not fill that hole. She was a Kryptonian. Her human disguise came with friends and a love interest, but though it was pleasant to play Kara Danvers, it wasn’t real.

Then Alex had been in danger. And Kara had become Supergirl.

Her false friends had turned out to be true friends. Her love interest turned out to be sweet and brave. And Alex-- Alex had turned out to be someone she had hardly known at all.

Their cool ‘sisterly’ relationship, carefully kept up--Alex had been checking on her, she knew now--transformed into something intense, furious, full of need and loyalty and pain. Alex had made herself into Kara’s knight.

A rogue knight, perhaps, a little too independent, but carrying Supergirl’s favor, appearing whenever she was in danger, and always betting on her in a fight.

Up there, in space, waiting for Rao to welcome her home, Kara had realized just how much love had been around her. She had never been alone. She wished she could have had a little more time with the people she now knew she loved and who loved her in return.

 

Then Alex had granted her wish. She’d come after her.

_ Keep up. _

 

This gift Alex had given her, given with no strings besides a silent hope in her eyes that Kara would stick around this time, made Kara unsure. Krypton was gone. Things on Earth were slipping and changing. James was lovely, but he wasn’t . . . he wasn’t  _ right.  _ Alex was quietly noble, but was getting on with things, smiling a little more, but acting like nothing had changed.

Perhaps nothing had changed, or if it had, it had been a slow unfolding, a blossoming.

Alex had offered herself without requesting anything in return. But she hadn’t said the words, hadn’t made an oath. Their relationship was unmoored. And Kara didn’t mind it, she knew now, that Alex loved her, that Alex would offer her anything she needed--though not anything she wanted. But it felt like it could be more.

But what kind of more?

 

She hadn’t thought she’d find the answer in a text message from her ex-boyfriend.

James:  _ Wow. Congratulations? _

He’d politely included the link to the instagram post.

It held a photograph of her and Alex at game night. It had been a good night, Kara basking in the love of her friends, eating her potstickers with relish, enthusiastically participating in the random dancing feature of the new game Winn had brought. The photo had been taken as she had half fallen over the couch behind Alex, wrapped her arms around her shoulders and grinned stupidly down at her, making a face. Alex had been caught grinning back up at her, bright eyed and a little flushed, openly pleased by her presence in a way Kara hadn’t seen since before Alex had left for college.

Kara was already hearing sirens by the time she noticed the hashtag: #mydumbassfiancée.

_ What?  _ Kara frowned.  _ I don’t look like a dumbass. _

She was in the middle of the fire, her phone keeping up a constant stream of alerts, when she realized what she’d overlooked.  _ Congratulations _ , James had said.  _ Fiancée _ . Oh. Of course. That was why he had found it odd. Alex wasn’t her fiancée.

She dragged a man on fire, screaming and sobbing for his wife, out of the inferno, and blew out the flames on his clothes and in his hair.

That knowledge felt like an emptiness.

 

In the basement of the DEO she found Alex, staring at her phone, looking panicked and shaky. 

She seemed ready to apologize, but Kara didn’t want her to. Whatever this was, it wasn’t something that needed apologizing for. Instead, Kara wanted to know why most of the congratulations texts were unsurprised, whether glad or resigned. Each one sparked joy in her, and then the spark died, because it wasn’t true. She wanted to know if there was a chance that this time it wouldn’t be a game.

Alex showed her the internet post stream of their alternate selves. 

There was a gentleness to that other Kara and Alex, a warmth that made Kara ache. Other Alex in sunglasses and a flannel, too cool for school, her finger tucked into other Kara’s beltloop. Alex frantically batting away the flowerpetals that Kara, perched on the roof above her, rained down onto her hair. Alex, looking after her, on the beach, a dark silhouette, shoulders a little slack, as if even this separation, of barely three yards, was too far.

Kara paused at a photo where she could see  _ serbryn _ . She blinked to keep back her tears. They had bonded in the eyes of Rao. That Kara had been able to place her home in Alex without letting go of Krypton.

It would be different, Kara knew, if Alex asked again.  _ Alex _ was different.

And Kara . . . Kara was different too.

 

They cleared it all up. Accidental mistag, so funny right? Kara smiled at her friends (at Lena, and Alex burned) and said, "yeah, Alex is my fave, it's true, but I would have told you if there was anything going on there." Alex tried to do the same. Somehow she came off less convincing. Vasquez hugged her. Lucy sighed. Maggie bought her a beer.

The photo was gone. The water once rippled now lay mirror still. 

 

Alex had bought the ring-pop the day after the incident.

It was an impulse. An,  _ oh, I'm in a gas station. Oh, I need that,  _ dropping it on top of her Red Bull and teriyaki jerky. She wasn't going to propose.

Haha.

Ha.

. . .

 

Kara watched Alex, the way she acted in her set ways at work, the way she stayed silent about her feelings. They were both so good at lying, at pretending things were okay, when everything between them had always been hard. The weight of grief and self-recrimination lay heavy on both of them. They had lost so much, they had not done enough to mend the pain they carried. But they had grown too. Alex was not feckless and selfish like she had been as a child, and Kara was no longer small and weak and alone. Her world was greater than Midvale now, greater than Alex and Eliza and the lingering ghost of Jeremiah. She was greater. She encompassed multitudes.

She didn’t need Alex to be whole.

But Alex kept her hand in her pocket when she saw Kara, kept  _ looking _ at her, as if she held the answer to a question Alex wasn’t ready to ask, and Kara looked inside, wondering if perhaps she could both not need Alex and yet want her with every corner of her soul at the same time.

 

Up on the roof of CatCo, Alex sat with her legs dangling over the edge. Kara settled down at her side, as quiet as a landing bird. They sat for a while, under the stars made dim by city lights.

Alex looked over at Kara, at the way, even with all the distance between them, she seemed relaxed to be here, comfortable, like she was during a movie night, like she was whenever she was with Alex. Carefully, deliberately, Alex stripped off her overshirt and pushed up her sleeve. Kara glanced over at her, frowned, then took the overshirt and folded it.

"I still have this scar, see," Alex said, showing it off. "I guess you were pretty pissed at me."

Kara's brow furrowed, like she didn't remember.

"Pissed enough to break our engagement."

Kara's eyes went wide. 

Alex smiled, a little goofily, like it was a joke. Kara smiled too, despite how little this felt like a joke. She’d been angry then, so angry, hurt and betrayed at losing Alex, at losing  _ home.  _ Again. But it was a long time ago. Alex had come back.

"You were leaving," Kara said. "You gave me a ring-pop, swore like it was a promise, and you were still leaving me in Midvale."

Alex nodded, looking down at her hands. "I was so dumb then. I didn't realize how much I was going to miss you."

Kara softened. Alex’s hurt, spiny as a hedgehog, always made her soften to accept it, draw its spines into her skin and soothe it. "You missed me?"

Alex scrunched her nose. "Duh."

Kara made a face.

Alex laughed and rephrased, looking at Kara this time, her dark eyes liquid and glimmering in the refracted light. "I missed you all the time."

 

They bumped shoulders, looking out at the city.

"If I could have hurled a ring pop at you when you decided to lift Fort Rozz back into the sky I would have," Alex said, her words tense, solid, and sharp. She wanted to be strong, but about this, she wasn’t strong. About this, she was still wounded, all blood and viscera exposed to the air. "You were leaving. But I didn't have a promise to throw at you. Not even one you thought was a joke."

 

Slowly, like melting ice, Kara let down the wall she had built to keep herself safe from abandonment. Alex would not abandon her again, not even to space, not even when Kara went to a place she had been sure Alex could not follow. Instead, Kara had been the abandoner. She had not wanted to leave, but once she had left, once she had given in, given up, she had let go of Earth, let go of all of the things that had tethered her there.

She’d let go of Alex, not knowing, not  _ trusting _ , how firm a grip Alex had on her.

Kara shut her eyes, to soothe the sting in them. 

After a moment, she leaned into Alex's shoulder. She didn't say anything, but from the way the tension went out of Alex, Kara knew she heard what Kara wanted the touch to say: 'I'm not going anywhere.'

That was all Alex wanted.

 

Alex fished the ring-pop out of her pocket and held it out.

Kara looked at it, and then looked up at her. 

“I never seem to do this right,” Alex said. 

Kara smiled very slightly, soft, only a little pained. “You do your best.” 

“For a human?”

Kara’s lips quirked like they used to when they were both just kids. “I think some humans could do better than you.”

“You’re so mean to me.” Alex scrunched her face and bumped Kara’s shoulder. “I don’t know why I put up with you.”

Kara smiled and rested her head on Alex’s shoulder. “Yes, you do.”

The crush in Alex’s chest made it all too obvious what sort of lies she had been telling herself. She loved Kara. She loved Kara in every way. She was home and she was adventure and she was  _ necessary _ in a way the rest of the world wasn’t. Some part of Alex had always known that. Maybe this had been destined since the first time she saw that shrimp of a girl and her blue eyes that shimmered with the galaxies she’d travelled through. But maybe, more likely, she had to choose. That was what an engagement was--not an affirmation; a decision. A direction.

"Walk with me," Alex asked, soft, earnest, offering the ring-pop with both hands curled underneath the packet. "Stay at my side."

For a moment, up there, on the tallest building in the city, there was nothing but the roar of the wind and the faint muted hum of the traffic below. Kara watched her, contemplative. The house of El was broken, her world was gone, and yet she had always seen Alex through the lens of Krypton. Alex was a liar, but had honor. She debased herself, but was worthy. She sacrificed herself, for Kara. The Codex would never name her to be Kara’s promised. But the Codex would never name anyone. Kara had to choose a new home for herself. 

It was lonely, to have to choose, without house and family to guide and support her. But though her grief was sometimes so heavy she felt it would crush her, Kara hadn’t been alone, not truly alone, since the first time she had been shivering and scared and confused, and Alex had thrown her sweatshirt at her. 

_ Kriei _ , Clark had said, unknowingly. Her bright one, her orbiting star.

Alex’s eyes were warm and steady, knowing, and unafraid.

_ Yes _ , said the child-Kara still deep inside her, the one who had not forgotten Krypton. Alex had grown well. She would do.

"I’ll keep up," Kara said, quietly and steadily. 

They would have  _ serbryn _ soon, bracelets made from a metal forged in a star, a symbol of permanence. But they did not need a symbol. Their bond that had survived violence and sadness and ignorance and loss, had looked into the face of death and denied him his prey.

The bond had always been there, and this time Kara knew what that look in Alex’s eyes meant. Whatever had been said, whenever it had seemed that she was abandoned, it hadn’t been true. In secret, struggling to keep pace, Alex had always walked by her side.

Kara opened the packet and put the ring pop on. It was too small for her ring finger so she slid it on her pinky. The scent of artificial grape rose up, chemical and familiar. She sucked on the gem a little, and winced, guilty at giving into the temptation of candy.

Alex laughed, and kissed the smear of purple hard candy off Kara's lower lip. The press of her mouth was unexpected, and yet right in a way that felt both unfamiliar and always known. A slight gasp escaped Kara. She tangled their fingers together. Then, her eyes already shut, she sought out Alex’s lips with her own.

_ My fiancée, _ Alex thought as Kara kissed her.  _ Kriei-te,  _ Kara thought, as Alex kissed her back. The words slotted right into place.

### 


End file.
